


Charlie Lock

by seapigeon



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aftermath, Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Everyone Has The Sads, Food aversion, HYDRA Trash Party, Hydra Deserves Whatever It Gets, M/M, Mind Control, Mutism, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Rape/Non-con Elements, Recovery, Rekindling, Revenge Fantasies, Revenge Realities, Suicide Attempt, Super Soldiers Behaving Badly, Torture, taking it slow
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-08
Updated: 2018-07-23
Packaged: 2018-09-30 21:52:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 9
Words: 79,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10173128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seapigeon/pseuds/seapigeon
Summary: The Winter Soldier knows that sometimes, in order to make the kill, you must destroy what the Target lives for.Steve Rogers knows that he can't fight his captors.  If he fights, they'll kill Bucky.  But the price of his life is steep.Natasha Romanov would rather die than watch the Soldier struggle.  It reminds her too much of herself.Tony Stark has nothing left to live for, but he's needed.  So all these miserable motherfuckers better stay alive, too.Bruce Banner just wants to not be needed.  And maybe he isn't - not for the Other Guy, not this time.Thor knows not what curse lies over Midgard, but it has taken his heart, and he will have vengeance.Sam Wilson is sick and tired of his friends getting hurt.  What good is flying if you can't stop people from hitting the ground?Clint Barton never expected to be a leader.  But a leader he is, and no one else is going to die on his watch.---A story in which the first wave of Project Insight succeeds, and the Avengers must pick up the pieces and find a way to stop Hydra from completing its work with Zola's algorithm.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Heed the warnings. This first part is dark and disturbing.

They punch the Target.They punch and kick him in the face so many times that he no longer has a face, just tenderized flesh and blood, and he marvels at the savagery of it.He, with the metal arm caked in gunpowder, blood, and brains.

_This is someone they hate more than me._

The thought comes unbidden and it is not something he fully understands.They do not hate him.His work is a gift to mankind.He has shaped the century.

When he loses consciousness they leave him.He slumps forward in prayer position, on his knees and that ruined face.The Asset is not sure if he is even alive, nor does he know why he should care.But perhaps they are not done with him.Perhaps he should check.

Incredibly, he is alive.Breathing through a mouth full of broken teeth.His jaw is broken, as well, in a way that needs doctoring if he is ever to eat again.

_They will put a tube in his nose, like they do to me when I require nourishment._

His nose is crooked and depressed.Inside it is likely blocked by blood and edema, maybe his septum if they hit him hard enough to break it.They cannot put anything in his nose.They will have to use the tube for his mouth, or go right into his stomach.

He turns the target onto his side so he will not choke on his own blood.It drips from the corner of his mouth, expanding into a puddle on the cold floor.Normal people could not survive this.This Target is not normal.

_He had a pleasant face._

Had.No longer.And what is _pleasant?_

 

 

 

The Asset wakes in the night to a gasping noise.The Target is having a seizure.Not unexpected; his brain must have swelled.There is nothing to be done for it.If it stops, he will live.If it doesn’t, he will die.

_It will pass.It passed when they put me in the machine for too long._

After a long minute and a half, he is still.His breathing is slow.

_Do they want me to kill him?_

Slow breath in.Inconsistent pauses as he pulls air.His left arm twitches - another seizure, but not as severe.It is self-limiting, and once again he is still.

_They have not told me to kill him._

But that was not true.Before the battle in the helicarrier, his orders were to eliminate this man.Right when he was about to fulfill his mission, he was told to bring him in alive.

_It would have been kinder to kill him._

What is _kind?_

 

 

 

 

He has not been right since the machine.There are pronouns and adjectives that are meaningless, yet they continue to creep into his thoughts.Thoughts that drift through unwieldy spaces that should not exist.It is not the first time he has been broken, but it is the first time he does not seek help; usually he goes to the techs and says _I am not functioning within normal parameters._ But it is almost always for his arm.

There is nothing wrong with his arm.Not the left one, anyway.The right shoulder was dislocated and he was proficient enough to reseat the joint.The pain should have been trivial but it was not.He is definitely not functioning within normal parameters.

The Asset thinks that maybe they know that, and that is why he’s here, sharing a concrete floor with the Target.

 

 

 

They come around mid-day, spoiling for blood, but the Target is still unconscious and is not roused even by pain.They settle for urinating on him; two of them relieve themselves on his chest, still clad in shredded scraps of patriotism.The third is a man the Asset knows; he is a vicious rapist, treasured by Hydra for his cruelty.The Asset has seen the look directed at his own body but he is forbidden.No coitus, willing or unwilling, to befuddle his programming.

_No touch to humanize me._

What is _human?_

It is not, the Asset decides, the slack-mouthed rapist, whose eyes glow with joy as he urinates on the Target’s face.He is going to kill him.There will be a chance, he is certain of it, because he sees in the other creature’s face an expression of predatory promise, and his penis is partially erect when he puts it back into his pants.

_I will kill him if he tries._

He needs no clarification on killing.

 

 

 

An hour passes, then two.The Asset gets up and washes the Target’s face with the meager cup of water meant for hydration.It does not matter.He still stinks of urine.He would remove the clothing, but this is not a warm place.

What is _warm?_

 

 

 

The Target’s face, incredibly, looks better.Not _good_ , but he is healing.Fast.

His nose is a lost cause without surgery, and the right cheek, and the jaw - that is not healing right, not at all.But the swelling is down, the bruising less livid, the cuts closed and scabbed.For all that, he has not regained consciousness.Neither has he shown signs of any more seizures.

The Asset is uneasy.They will wait for him to heal just enough, to regain consciousness, and then they will do it again.He knows this in his gut like he knows his own appendages and weapons.

_They will torture him.They will break him._

What is _broken?_

That he thinks he knows.In words, yes - in disrepair, _not functioning within normal parameters_.But he also knows it in look, in body language.He has seen it.

His mind slips back and the sensation of _memory_ is so strange that he itches with it.He understood a long time ago that what made people resistant to death was hope.Willpower.Goals.Sometimes the destruction of a hope or a goal made it easier for a person to submit to death.So when he understood what the Target was trying to do - why he was fighting him so hard, and with a skill and strength to match his own - he switched his strategy.

The Asset crushed that little circuit board in his left hand.The Target _screamed_.

_No!No no no please God no!_

And he fell to his knees and that was it.The ship shook around them, the recoil of many guns firing at once, and he _sobbed._ Ugly, heaving things, his hands over his ears as if to try to drown out inevitability, and his powerful body grew small on the floor of the helicarrier.

_Human_ , the Asset thinks. _Broken_.

There is a sensation in his chest and he does not know what it is.But it is…discomfiting.He moves away from the Target.

 

 

 

They grow impatient.They come with electricity and hot metal and use both on his naked body until he screams himself hoarse.His eyes, blue like the arc of the Taser, roll in pain.They only stop when he goes rigid and then into another full-on tonic-clonic seizure, foam and blood dribbling from his lips.

Why doesn’t he _die?_ It agitates the Asset, this toying behavior.Death should be clean.Not in the sense of _not messy_ , because that is unavoidable sometimes, but The Asset did not play with his food, and this Target is an especially tough piece of steak that needs far too much chewing.

A doctor places a line in the Target’s subclavian and they give him IV fluids and nutrition, the white liquid he recognizes.They do nothing for the burns.They are striped across his torso and thighs and buttocks.The Asset knows they like a precise temperature, designed to induce second degree burns - the most painful, and horrifically scarring.His eyes drift to the Target’s scrotum.Only one burn but the _screaming_ …

The same scream he’d let out when the Asset let the broken pieces of circuit board fall from his metal fingers.The same pain.How is that possible?

He does not know what that circuit board was for, but he is beginning to wish he didn’t break it.

What is _wish_?

 

 

 

He knows he shouldn’t, but he begins to ask questions.To speak to the doctors who filter in and out in Russian.

_What are my orders?What is my mission?Am I to return to cryostasis?Shall I eliminate the Target?_

He wants to eliminate the Target. He wants to put him out of his misery.

_Orders?Mission?Cryostasis?Eliminate?_

They all ignore him.They only pay attention to the Target, to torture, to demean, to drag back from any hope of death with forced nourishment and insufficient time to heal from all that they inflict.The Asset does not understand why he doesn’t fight them.He knows how this man can fight. 

He thinks it is his brain.That first brutal beating - it damaged him.Badly.It’s rare that he’s awake when they’re not torturing him.When he is awake, he doesn’t speak.Barely moves.Eyes roam and stare without recognition, and sometimes they flicker if he moves his head too fast, and he gets sick.It’s just diluted bile.

_He is not functioning within normal parameters,_ The Asset says to the doctor the next day.The doctor, a young, thin, arrogant blond man, looks at him and says, “And why should you give a fuck?” 

The Asset does not know.But he does… _give a fuck_.

_Broken._

Yes.He is broken, and they are very deliberately not fixing him.He is still for a long time, trying to reason out what that means.It isn’t easy.His reasoning exists for one task, and this isn’t it.

The Asset doesn’t ask any more questions.But they leave the Target alone for a few days.They even bathe him, soap and rough cloth and cold water over constellations of scars and bruises.The smell in the cell is notable in that it is now absent.Not for long, he is sure.

He doesn’t know why he does it, but the Asset peels back one of the plates on his arm, grinds it to sharpness on the stone wall, and shaves the misshapen jaw and cheeks.Then the neck, and he thinks of pushing harder, about which vein or artery will help him bleed out fastest.The plates creak and a tiny glimmer of blood slicks the metal, but The Asset freezes.

The Target is looking at him.Calm, fixed, _aware_. 

There is no anger, blame, or hatred in his gaze, and that is profoundly disturbing.

The Asset backs away until he hits the wall.

 

 

 

He dreams.For the first time in what seems like centuries, he dreams.

None of it makes sense.Blue eyes, freckles, bird bones, sandy hair.Lips and tongue not his own.Bridges.Pencils.Tears.

The Asset jerks awake, eyes wide.

What is _pleasure?_

 

 

 

No.No, not today.Not yet.

The rapist is back, with one other man in tow.The Target is conscious, improved by the natural progression of time and several days of non-abuse, appropriate nutrients, and medications.Now he knows why they have allowed him to recover.So he can truly feel the pain of what is about to happen.

His brain must be getting better, because he _understands_.He comprehends the look, the intent.The Target rises to a crouch.He is going to fight.

At least he is, until the second man strides forward and puts a gun against the Asset’s head.

“We will kill him.Blow his scrambled brains out, right here, right now,” the rapist says.

The Target’s face crumples.The fight leaches out of him.He shifts to his knees, body limp with resignation.

“One move,” the rapist says, bold fingers playing along the ruined jawline.“One _twitch_ , and he’s dead.”His small, mean eyes are dark, and the Asset can see the bulge in his pants.“Understood?”

The Target looks at the Asset with drowned eyes.His head dips, and he nods.

The Asset wants to scream.He wants to _rail_ when the creature tugs him by the hair, rubs the blunt bell tip of his penis against the Target’s face, forces it between his lips.He thrustswith cruel snaps of his hips and it’s _awful._ The Target can’t help but try to pull away from him but there is nowhere for him to go.He’s pinned, has to take it, has to gag and suffocate when the creature pushes into his mouth to the root and holds him there for almost a full minute and groans while he does it.The Asset watches his hands, balled and trembling against his thighs, and something is happening in _his_ brain. 

“Oh, dry your tears, baby, we’re just getting started,” the creature pants and laughs.“I think you’ll like it when I order the _Soldat_ to fist you with that left hand of his.Get you ready for me, and then Rumlow over there. I believe you two are acquainted?”

The Asset cannot breathe and he cannot see for the rage but he hears the sound of the Target choking, knows there are bitter tears rolling down his cheeks.He did nothing every other time, every time they came in and made him scream, sometimes for hours.But this, this - he cannot scream, he won’t fight, and the Asset knows it is because of him, somehow.He is of value to the Target.He is allowing himself to be raped to protect him.

No.

_NO._

His eyes flicker to the one called Rumlow.He isn’t watching the Asset.He is watching the rape and the hand that’s not on his gun is fondling his dick through his pants.The Asset’s lips peel back from his teeth.

Everything is red after that. 

 

 

 

“Uh, Clint?”

The man in question looks up from retying his son’s shoe, not liking the tone of Sam’s voice in his earpiece.

“We’ve got an incoming bogey,” Sam says, hushed.

Clint prods the boy toward the house.The house and family no one knew he had until a month ago.Clint sucks his breath in between his teeth.

“Is it them?”

There is a long silence.Then Sam speaks again.

“I don’t…I don’t think so.Too small.Offensive capabilities, but nothing like the helicarriers.I can take it down.”

“No,” he breathes.“Maybe it’s…”But he doesn’t finish, because it’s foolish to hope.

“They’re coming right for us.You telling me to let them land?”

He nods, mind made up.“Yeah.We can still shoot them on the ground.I’m pretty good at that.”

“Want me to stay out, or do you need backup?”

“I’ve got Banner.”

“Okay.Falcon out.”

Clint goes inside for his bow.Laura and the kids make their way to the basement without questions, and they bring Natasha with them.She can’t make it down the stairs herself; every bone in her right leg is broken, as are most of her ribs and a few pelvic bones.Tony he leaves where he is, sitting listless by the living room window.If things go bad he’ll want to die.Already does, without Pepper.

Seeing the bow, Bruce knows right away that it’s go-time.He puts down his paperback and takes off his shirt.Best not to rip it to shreds if The Other Guy has to make an appearance.

Clint nods at him and Bruce nods back.Together they make their way out onto the lawn as the aircraft circles and lands.Clint nocks his bow, chewing hard on his lip and wondering how they found the house.Bruce just waits.

Two figures emerge from the plane.One is dragging the other.Two men, big, and Clint’s eyes catch the shine of metal. 

“Holy _shit_ ,” he says.

“What?” Bruce asks.

“That’s…” his jaw works as he tries to come up with the fastest explanation for Bruce, who had essentially been vacationing under a rock in Mongolia when the shit storm began.He gives up.“Bruce, that’s Steve.”

“Then what are we—”

“Steve and a Hydra assassin.”He knows who he is; Nat told him, when he tactlessly asked about the scar on her abdomen back in the days where he had the privilege of seeing such things.It’s a story for another time.

“Oh,” Bruce says.“Okay.”The brief flash of hope on his face disappears, replaced by the hardness the last month had bestowed on all of them.

As they approach Clint’s stomach drops.Steve looks _terrible_.He’s wrapped in what can only be a parachute, and what they can see of him is bruised and scarred and emaciated.And his _face,_ Jesus Christ. 

The man dragging him along looks terrible, too.Pale, unkempt, wearing blood like body paint.He’s talking and for a moment Clint doesn’t realize he’s not speaking English. 

“I recognize him,” Bruce says from the corner of his mouth.“He’s the D.C. Freeway guy.”

“Oh, so you _do_ watch the news once in a while,” Clint mutters.“Speak any Russian?”

“A little, actually.Spent some time in Sochi few years back.”

“What the fuck is he saying?”They’re getting close and a decision has to be made; shoot or stay.

“Uh.Um.It’s…” Bruce squints, wracking his considerable brain.Clint sees the exact moment he seizes onto the translation.“ _Help_.He’s asking for help.”

He lowers his bow.He nods, opens his hands, and uses the only Russian he knows.

“ _Da.”_

“ _Spasiba.Spasiba,”_ the Winter Soldier says.His voice is rough and holds a note of panic.Clint notices that he’s been shot twice, at least, and his leg wound is still oozing in spite of the tourniquet.Bruce notices the same thing and moves forward to hoist Steve’s weight off him.He’s babbling other things, too fast and too complicated for either of them to understand, and he won’t let go of Steve.Won’t cede him to Bruce.Clint shakes his head and supports the Soldier on his right and they limp toward the house, four across.

It’s insane and he knows he shouldn’t do it.But up close, he sees the tear tracks and dried snot in the blood on the Soldier’s face, sees the desperation in the clutch of his fingers around Steve.Realizes that _he rescued Steve_.Took bullets for him.Defected.

He’s not a good guy, but he’s not a bad guy anymore, and right now beggars could not afford to be choosers. 

 

 

 

The Asset is uncomfortable, so uncomfortable, but it is safe here.And these people care about the Target.The dark-skinned man with the wings appears after being summoned by the archer, and when he sees the Target he collapses and cries, hand stroking the Target’s hair back from his forehead.

The Target is conscious but not present.In shock.

He speaks, trying to make them understand.None of them do, until a silky, lethal voice addresses him.

“They did what?”

He turns.He knows her.Not the name, but the sharp voice, the red hair.

“They raped him.Started.Tried.I…”He can’t finish.It hurts.Everything hurts.The Asset’s hands clutch at his chest.His hair.“I killed them all.”

She swallows.“You are hurt.”

“I am _nothing_.”

He let them, he let them do those things to the Target, and he _can’t stand it_.It crawls under his skin, tiny insect legs, and it has to stop, he has to _stop_ , and there’s a gasp and she drops her crutches.

It is the man with the stupid facial hair and unnecessary sunglasses who stops him.A red-gauntleted hand rips the gun neatly out of his grip and bends it in half.The Asset howls and falls to his knees.It is the last gun.

“Bruce,” the gun-thief says, “happy juice.Now.Both of them.”

“We shouldn’t sedate Steve without knowing the extent of his injuries—”

“ _Now,”_ the gun-thief repeats. 

“Broken,” The Asset wails, still in Russian.“I broke it.I broke him.”His face is wet.

The redhead drops awkwardly to the floor, drags herself forward on her left side.Then she reaches for him.He flinches violently at her touch, bites at the feral cries that want to escape him.

_Nyet nyet nyet nyet nyet!_

“Nat,” the archer says, a warning in his voice.

“I know what I’m doing,” she replies.

The Asset trembles.He does not remember a touch like this.A touch that isn’t painful.There is a pinch at his right arm - sedative - and fear claws inside him, black and hideous, and he begs.

“Do not put me back in the cold.Please.Kill me.Kill me instead.”

“There’s no cold here,” she says.He whines through his teeth, fights the sedative, languidly restless until she puts a delicate, deadly hand on his chest and says, “We’ll take care of him.”

Only then does he let go, into a pit of darkness he isn’t sure he’ll ever escape.

 

 

 

Clint is the unofficial leader now.With Steve presumed dead, Fury and Hill confirmed dead, Tony too crushed by Pepper’s death to do much more than breathe, and Natasha injured, he is in charge of the wounded flock.Which has now grown by two.

The first thing he does is send Laura and the kids to her mother’s house.He doesn’t want his family here if Hydra comes knocking.Besides, just laying eyes on the Winter Soldier is enough to give _him_ nightmares, let alone young children.When he wakes someone will have to wrestle him into the shower.He’s caked in blood and looks like he hasn’t showered in a year.Smells a bit like it, too.It occurs to him that it may be due to the arm, though it seems terribly impractical to outfit an assassin with an electronic arm that isn't waterproof; what if it _rains_ when he’s out trying to make a kill?Surely Hydra could do better than that.

Both men are laid out in the guest bedroom, the one with two twin beds.Natasha is insistent that they should not be separated.She doesn’t say why, but Clint trusts her instincts.He helps Sam pull basketball shorts and a t-shirt onto Steve’s unconscious form.The extent of the damage becomes more apparent when the parachute is fully unwrapped.There isn’t an inch of him that’s unmarked, and he’s thin from starvation, his muscles wasted.

A few feet away Tony and Bruce are tending to the Soldier’s wounds.So far they have learned that he doesn’t wear undergarments, and that there is a mountain range of scar tissue on his left chest and back where the metal arm attaches.His wounds are, in order of least to most worrisome, a soft tissue graze to the right deltoid, a through-and-through to the right flank, and the left thigh, which is still bleeding sluggishly. 

Clint watches Tony.This is the most he’s moved in days.In the past he would have attributed it to curiosity about the metal arm, and there’s probably an element of that.Right now he thinks it’s probably more about the suicide attempt.If Tony has to stay alive, so does everyone else.It’s not healthy but it gives him focus, and Clint's okay with it.

His eyes fall on Sam next.They don’t know each other well, not yet, but Clint knows he is struggling, chest moving too fast for a man standing still.It’s been hard for him since the shit hit the fan, and seeing Steve like this has ripped him open all over again.This might be what puts him over the edge. 

“Sam,” Clint says softly.“Take a walk.We’ve got him.”

“I’m okay,” he insists through his teeth.

“You don’t have to be okay,” Tony says behind them.He doesn’t look up from what he’s doing; he holds the Soldier’s leg while Bruce applies a pressure dressing.

“I gotta be,” Sam says.“I gotta be, for him.”

“What would he say to you right now?” Tony asks.The pressure dressing is done, and he’s checking the Soldier’s clothing for any other weapons.As they watch, he unearths two knives, a flash grenade, and a garrote. 

“He’d say I should listen to Clint,” Sam allows quietly.

“Then get gone.” 

Sam takes a deep breath and leaves the room.In the ensuing silence they hear Natasha crutch out the front door with him.

“He’s a good kid,” Tony says, flat in spite of the sentiment.

Clint nods.“Bruce, how long do you think the sedative will keep them under?”

“Until morning, at least.It’s strong.”

“Good, because we all need to talk.Dining room in an hour.”

As he leaves the room, he hears Tony say under his breath, “Sir, yes, sir.”And there is something so deeply comforting about Tony being Tony, even for the briefest of moments, that Clint allows himself to think that they might actually fight their way out of this thing someday.

 

 

 

Until Natasha tells them what the Soldier said when he was babbling in Russian, before he tried to kill himself.That guts them all, and it’s just the first blow.Then she and Sam _really_ explain things.That’s how Clint learns that the Winter Soldier is Steve’s best friend from childhood.That he is, or _was,_ Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, and he’s been given a bastardized form of the same serum that made Steve into Captain America.They don’t know for sure, but Natasha says with some confidence that she believes they made him the Winter Soldier with a combination of torture and behavioral programming.She knows the most about shady Russian assassin programs, so Clint has no reason not to believe her.

And it’s all just conversation until Tony stands up.

“You mean to tell me that you just let him walk into a fight where you _knew_ he’d have to face this guy?A fight where literally hundreds of thousands of lives were at stake?”His hands are balled into fists at his sides.“In what universe is that anything other than an invitation to fail?”

Sam rises, too.“Don’t you _dare_ ,” he says.“He knew what was at stake.”

“Did he?” Tony asks.

“Tony, that’s not you talking, that’s grief,” Natasha said, voice sharp.“So it might be a good idea to sit down and shut up before you say something you can’t take back.If there was any way he could have stopped it, he would have.You know that.You know _him_.”

Tony turns, paces.But he doesn’t say anything else.

“We’re not going to know exactly what happened until they wake up,” Bruce says, quiet and measured.“But…”

“But what?” Sam says.

“Steve is…not okay, neurologically or psychologically.I don’t know what he’s going to be able to do when he wakes up.”

“Do you think it’s permanent?”

“Knowing him, probably not.What I’m getting at, though, is that we might need to get our answers from Barnes.” 

Natasha shakes her head.“Don’t.He’s not Barnes yet, and maybe not ever.If we push him too fast he’ll lose it.”She takes a breath, chews her lips.Clint can see that she’s uncomfortable, deeply so, because this is all a bit too autobiographical.But she plunges ahead, because there’s no other choice.“He’s used to…a structured world.A handler, someone telling him what to do and when to do it.Bringing Steve here was probably the first autonomous decision he’s made in decades.”

She lets that sink in, lets them all think on the implications.

“He doesn’t understand why he did it and when he calms down he is going to feel like he did something wrong.He’ll want to go back, to submit himself for punishment.It’s how he’s programmed.Complete the mission or suffer the consequences.It’s a narrow existence, but it’s all he knows.”

“What are you saying, Natasha?” Bruce asks.

“That he needs a handler,” Tony answers succinctly.

She looks at her hands for a moment, and then she nods.

“He listened,” Sam says, slow, “to you.”

She swallows.She is pale.

“Nat,” Clint says, instantly protective, because he is the only one who had ever seen her struggle after parting ways with her old life.“It doesn’t have to be you.One of us can—”

“No.”She breathes and her spine straightens.“It does have to be me.I can do it.” 

He knows better than to doubt her.“Okay.”

“This is a bad plan,” Tony says, fingers kneading his temples.

“And what’s your big idea?” Sam fires back, still hot from earlier.

“I don’t have one,” Tony admits.“Yet.”

There is a silence.Something prickles at Clint’s senses, and he sits up straighter.A glance at Natasha tells him that she feels it, too.A second later the front door opens.Natasha has a gun up before anyone else can react, though Sam isn’t far behind her, and Clint’s knife is in his hand without thought.He registers the whine of Tony’s glove powering up.Bruce sighs, stands up, and reaches for the hem of his shirt. 

Clint turns his head and tunes his ear; there is something familiar in the cadence of the footsteps.Long steps, but light feet.He knows who it is.He sheathes the knife.

Thor steps into the doorway.He holds Mjolnir loosely in his right hand and he looks as worried as they have ever seen him.His eyes scan their ranks as hands lower weapons and there is a collective sigh of relief.

“I did not know what I would find when Heimdall sent me here with word of grim tidings,” he says, rich voice settling their nerves.The expression of solace on his face speaks volumes. 

He sets the hammer down and the ensuing reunion is heartfelt.It doesn’t escape Clint’s notice that Tony, rarely one for physical contact that he doesn't initiate himself, allows Thor to pull him into a brotherly embrace.Thor eyes Natasha’s cast and crutches with dismay and is gentle in his affections. For a short time there are smiles all around, and introductions in the case of Sam.It is a fine moment, one they all needed, but it won’t last. 

Seconds later, Thor’s face falls when he realizes who is missing. 

“Where is Steven?”

And the silence is deafening.


	2. Chapter 2

Clint still isn't used to being the one to break the loaded silences. But he must. He takes Thor’s elbow and leads him away from the living room. 

“He's here. He's alive.”

“But…not well?” the Asgardian asks, catching Clint’s tone. 

“Not well.”

Thor breathes.“May I see him? Offer comfort?”

“Yes. But Thor, there is something else you need to do, and you need to do it now.Wherever Jane and Erik and Darcy are, go check on them.If you find them bring them back here.”

The expression of open worry is back, strange on his face.“Is there a reason that I would not find them?” he asks.

Clint sighs.“Yes.”

His blue eyes go wide.“What has happened here?”

“There will be time for explanations later.Right now you need to go.”

Thor nods, at last understanding the urgency, and departs in haste.

 

 

 

It's hours later, on the eleven o'clock news, that they know.There's a breaking story about severe thunderstorms blanketing the Northeast out of nowhere.Thousands of lightning strikes, hurricane force winds, tornados.The Triskelion is hit hard, and the images echo other great disasters of recent memory; gaping holes in the sides of the buildings, plaster and rebar, a thousand papers blowing and floating in the Potomac.

“His friends,” Sam says.“They're dead?”

“I was hoping not,” Clint sighs.“Jane and Darcy usually work out of the Southwest.Erik goes wherever they'll give him grant money.But if SHIELD was his payor…”

“He would have been in D.C.”

Clint nods.

Sam shakes his head and takes a sip of the whiskey Clint had unearthed for them to share.“What's it like to piss off a god?”

“Ask Tony,” Natasha replies. She shouldn't mix whiskey with pain medicine, but Clint isn't going to stop her.That she’s drinking whiskey at all is a strong indicator of her mood.He doesn’t have any vodka in the house and he knows she wants to murder him for it.

“Tell me again what Zola and Sitwell said about the algorithm,” Bruce says. He hasn'ttouched his glass, and Clint is going to relieve him of it soon.

“Why?” she asks.

“Because if we can understand it, we might be able to predict its targets. We can save people.” 

“We aren't even close to that level of understanding.Sitwell wasn’t much more than a lackey and Zola is gone.Short of getting into those helicarriers or Hydra HQ we have no chance.”

“Do you know for sure that Zola is completely gone?If there's anything we can salvage…”

Natasha is looking at something none of them can see, and it's clear from her posture and expression that she doesn't think much of Bruce's line of inquiry.

“He has a point,” Sam says.“You said Zola’s brain was on data recorders. Even one of them could help.”

“I guarantee there's nothing in New Jersey except a big sand pit.They're not dumb enough to leave things like Arnim Zola’s brain laying around.”

“Still might be worth a flyover.”

She shrugs.“If you have to do it, do it.Just be _careful_.” She stands up, struggling with the crutches and her glass.She levels a pointed glare at Clint.“A little help here?”

He gets up and takes the glass. And because she needs to smile, he pours what's left into his daughter’s sippy cup and snaps the lid on.She smacks him with a crutch and it smarts, but it's worth it, because she isn't too proud to reject it.She holds the cup in her teeth and crutches away to her room.Bruce chuckles.Sam is too absorbed in his thoughts to notice the flash of levity.

Later on, when he checks on her, she's asleep and the cup is empty.She has an alarm set for a half hour before sunrise.She wants to be awake before Barnes, and someone has to relieve Tony.He doesn't sleep, not at night, but by daybreak every second day he is exhausted enough to nap. 

Normally he would worry about someone as injured as Natasha taking watch duties. But he knows that even a one-legged, crutch wielding Natasha is far more dangerous than the average person.She can hold her own.Fortunately, she is also good at asking for help when she needs it. She wasn't always…but she learned.

 

 

 

It's four in the morning when Thor returns.Tony and Bruce are still up, night owls even before these dark times.Wordlessly, Bruce offers his untouched glass of whiskey. They know it has nothing on Asgardian booze, but it's something, and Thor drinks it in one gulp.

He collapses into an arm chair.He looks like hell.After long minutes he says, “Erik was working for SHIELD.Jane was in town to visit him and attend a conference.He died trying to help prevent the launch of those death machines.They killed Jane in the middle of her keynote speech.” 

“Jesus,” Tony whispers.It's all he's got to offer.

“I'm sorry, Thor,” Bruce says.“Truly.”

They sit in silence for a time.

“Darcy?” Tony asks.He has a soft spot for her, a kid sister he never had.

“I found no sign of her.I cannot speak to her fate.”

“Let's hope she's hiding somewhere,” Bruce murmurs.

“These people,” Thor starts, for once sounding as ancient as he is, “why would they target Erik and Jane?”

“They targeted anyone who could stand in the way of their rule.Anyone who might challenge their bid for absolute power.”

“A purge.”

Tony nods.

“Surely such numbers could not have been threat enough to kill.Why so many?Why such genocide?”

“You don't understand this world.Everything we say or do is observed, recorded. Any little thing can be interpreted as a threat. They used an algorithm, a mathematical exercise—“ Tony can tell that Thor does not understand, not the way he's phrasing it.“What do you call it in Asgard when you have to separate things by certain criteria?”

“Sorting,” he responds, managing not to be insulted by the simplicity of Tony's question because he is used to Tony and the differences between their realms. 

“Right. So this is a kind of sorting that uses computers to filter through certain information faster than any person can.You tell it what to look for, it compiles a list. It extrapolates future behavior from the past and the present.And much of our past and _all_ of our present is public because of technology.Because of the way we live.”

Thor works through it, and a look of horror blooms on his face.“They were killed for their _potential_ for resistance?”

“Many of them, yes.”

His hands clench.“Pepper?”

Tony sighs. “Pepper.”

“Oh, Tony,” he breathes.“We are brothers in pain.”

“There’s a lot of that going around,” he says gruffly.

Bruce watches them, feeling like an intruder.They have lost so much.He doesn’t have much to lose.The only family he has is here.Ragged, but still alive.

“That’s not the end of it,” he says, because Tony has run out of words at the mention of Pepper.“What they did, it’s only one small geographical area.They want to purge the whole world.”

“The whole world?”Thor is aghast.“All of Midgard?”

“Yes.”

“But that…that is _millions_ of lives!”

Bruce nods.

“This cannot happen.”

“No.But we’re kind of at a loss for what to do.Nat, Sam, and Steve tried, and…”

A look of guilt crosses Thor’s face - he forgot about Steve.“Yes.Steven.What—”

“Not tonight,” Tony interrupts.

“But—” 

_“Not tonight_.”

And maybe, Bruce thinks, it is more a reflection of Tony’s feelings about Steve’s condition than it is a desire to protect Thor.Or maybe it’s a little bit of both.But Thor accepts it and so does Bruce, and they make their way to their respective spots for the evening.Thor lays awake and mourns.Tony takes watch, nursing a third whiskey.Bruce watches Tony until he falls asleep. 

 

 

 

 

Of course it’s him.Of course Tony’s the one on watch when Steve wakes up.

It’s not quite dawn, and one minute he’s out and the next his eyes are open and staring at the ceiling.It takes everything Tony has not to do exactly what Bruce told him not to - to reach out and touch him.Instead, he sits in the chair at his bedside, puts his hands under his thighs, and says, “Hey.”

No reaction.He just blinks.Breathes.

“You’re safe,” Tony says after a while.He’s not good at this kind of thing but he’s willing to try, for Steve’s sake.“Believe it or not, we’re at Clint’s house.He went and got married and had some kids while we weren’t looking.These spies and their secret lives.”

Nothing.

“It’s,” and Tony has to look at his watch, because he’s honestly not sure of the date himself, “it’s Tuesday, October 14.The year 2014,” he adds as an afterthought.He wants to think Steve’s not that fucked up, but he can’t pretend the guy hasn’t taken the beating of his life.The evidence is right in front of him. 

Somehow it’s worse when he’s awake, because he’s not even there.

“He brought you here.Barnes.Not sure how he found us but I’m pretty sure it has something to do with Wilson’s wing suit.It’s trackable, the propulsion system.I’m going to have to work on that.”

The silence is maddening.

 

 

 

_He knows him, he thinks.The face, the nervous, rambling speech.It’s so familiar but he can’t trust that it’s real.That any of it is real._

_He’d drifted so many times, some ether between waking and sleeping, one foot in the living world and one foot somewhere else.It is easy to choose the warmer spot.The one sliced in sunlight, where no one can hurt him._

_Like this place.This room, it’s simple, homey, reminds him of another time where things seemed harder but they were actually easier.He can stay here.Here, with this ghost, until…_

 

 

“Steve, please.Just…just let me know you’re here with me.Please.” 

 

 

_Steve._

_No one has called him that for a while.Not since Maria’s voice last crackled over the comm line._

_Maybe this is finally death.Or maybe…this is…real?_

 

 

 

Ever so slowly, Steve’s head turns.Blue eyes settle on him and _look_. 

“Atta boy,” Tony hears himself say, and feels stupid at how happy it makes him.But it doesn’t last.Steve’s face goes white, his eyes wide, and Tony feels it just a second too late.Barnes is behind him. 

 

 

 

_No, not again, not again, Rumlow’s head on his neck backwards, and he’s choking, vomiting, but he can still taste it and there are metal fingers in eye sockets and a person should not come apart like that, like paper, rip and crack, gore that doesn’t seem real except that he can smell it, and guns are popping and Bucky’s not Bucky and —_

 

Steve is curling up in fetal position and Tony feels the metal fingers on the back of his neck.Barnes snarls something in Russian.Tony is pretty sure he’s going to try to kill him.He’s slow, he hasn’t slept enough, and of all the times in the last few weeks, it has to happen the one time he's not actually ready to die?

_“Soldat!”_

Natasha’s voice is cutting.The metal hand jumps on his neck, eases up marginally, but he doesn’t let go.Not until she barks something else in Russian.She sounds rough - too much whiskey and painkillers last night.But whatever she says, it works.He backs off.Slowly, muscles coiled, eyes never leaving Tony.

 

 

 

Her head is pounding.She would not be mixing whiskey and Percocet again.At the very least, the gravel in her voice lends her some grit; if the Soldier sees weakness in the cast and the crutches, there is no hope for any of them.Except maybe Steve.

“Mission report,” she says.Order, routine - that is what he craves.What she once craved.

His eyes spear Tony.No doubt he remembers the snatching of his gun, and it’s clear that he thinks Tony was trying to hurt Steve just now.She’ll have to make sure that Tony knows that.Right now he doesn’t even seem to care; he’s riveted.

“Soldier, mission report,” she repeats with more force.His eyes jerk to her, unable to resist the compulsion.

“I do not have a mission,” he grinds out.

“Your last mission. _Now_.In English.”

He twitches visibly.“I was…ordered to target…Rogers, Steven, alias Captain America, and any associated parties.Deny access to Project Insight helicarriers and terminate by any means necessary.”

“And?”

Muscles in his face jump.“Neutralized ground and air support for Target.Neutralized associated party Wilson, Sam, alias Falcon.Unable to deny access to all helicarriers at once.Engaged Target inside Unit 03.”

“Continue,” she prompts.

“Target difficult to kill.Likely enhanced.Sustained significant damage.I was…unable to control Target via conventional weaponry or hand to hand combat.”

He goes quiet, and his eyes drift away.

“ _Soldat?_ ”

He swallows.“Target was observed to attempt replacement of internal components of ship.Strategy altered to destruction of replacement components.Successfully completed this task.Target…”

Dear God, does he look lost.

“Target neutralized.Unable to continue combat due to emotional response.I prepared to terminate the Target when I received updated mission parameters.”

“What were these parameters?”

“Bring the Target in alive.I completed the mission as instructed and delivered the Target to Secretary Pierce.”

“And then?”

“There is no further information from this mission.”

“After the mission, _Soldat_.Speak.”

He doesn’t, not for a long time.

“Speak!” she prompts.“Then you have earned rest.”What she used to do to hear those words, those blissful words.

His eyes are glassy.“I was…placed in a cell.Three days, 5 hours, 47 minutes passed.I began to suspect that I was not functioning within normal parameters.”He looks straight at her.“I am _not_ functioning within normal parameters.I require maintenance.”

“What kind of maintenance?” Natasha asks carefully.

“The chair,” he all but whispers. 

“What in the hell is _the chair?_ ” Tony says behind her, echoing her thoughts exactly.But he needs to shut the fuck up.The Soldier’s eyes flicker to Tony and remember that he’s there, and he tenses.

“After the three days,” she redirects, knowing that they need every detail they can get, “what happened?” 

“The Target was placed in the same cell.The Target…was…beaten and tortured repeatedly…while I watched.”A shudder passes through him.“I was given no mission, though I asked many times.I considered resuming the previous mission of terminating the Target.”His right hand drifts to his neck, ghosts over the stubbled skin there.“I…attempted to terminate the Target as an…act of…m-mercy…but I was unable d-due to emotional r-response.”

Natasha’s eyes widen.Mercy is not a word in Red Room, KGB, or Hydra vocabulary.To admit that to a handler risks death.Either he does not think she’ll deal it, or he _wants_ her to.She thinks it is the latter.

“Why would you have an emotional response to the Target?” she asks softly.

He looks over at Steve, eyes confused and wistful and shattered at the same time.

“I knew him.”

She can see that she’s losing him.Something is overtaking him, because his breathing picks up and his hands begin to shake.She can’t push him any further.He has to be pulled back, refocused on routine.

“You require medical attention, soldier.You will bathe, and then you will allow the doctor to examine you.You will submit to any medical procedures necessary to stabilize your condition.”

She doesn’t miss the tic in his facial muscles at the mention of doctors and medical procedures.But the orders bring him back from the edge.His hands still and the comfort of order slows his breath. 

She adds one last thing - maybe the most important.“You will not harm any person residing in this house.”

His eyes flicker to Tony.He’s not going to forget Tony snatching his gun from him any time soon, nor does he trust him around Steve.Natasha isn’t worried; most people’s initial reaction to Tony is to dislike him.The Soldier’s eyes return to her and he nods. 

“I will comply.”

 

 

 

Thor is watching at the door.Bruce is next to him.Natasha leads the dark-haired man with the metal arm out of the bedroom.Thor notices that his eyes linger on the other bed as he goes, the bed Thor can’t see from where he’s standing which no doubt contains Steve.After they’ve disappeared into the bathroom down the hall, Sam in tow, he turns his head to look at Banner. 

“What is he?”

Bruce breathes a melancholy chuckle.“He’s Steve’s best friend.” 

“I do not understand.”

“He was taken prisoner in the Second World War.Hydra turned him into that.”

“But humans…your lifespans…would he not be an old man?”

“He’s like Steve.”

Thor frowns.“I was given to understand that there is no one else like Steve.”

He has never known anyone who smiles with as much sadness as Bruce.“No one as successful, that’s for sure.”

Thor says nothing.

 

 

 

Tony looks at Steve.He’s curled in a tight ball on his right side, eyes closed.His breath is too fast and his brow too creased for him to be asleep.He’s in there, somewhere, afraid.

“Come on back, Steve,” Tony says softly.“It’s all right.”He looks at his hands and shakes his head.“Well, it’s not all right, you and I both know that, but you’re safe.”

It takes ten solid minutes of Tony rambling about everything and nothing, but eventually Steve’s eyes open again.They stare at one another until Thor comes in to take over his watch.To his credit, there’s little more than a twitch in his jaw when he first lays eyes on Steve, but it’s a cover-up.He’s heartbroken.

“Just keep using his name and telling him he’s safe,” Tony murmurs when he’s near the door. 

“Are we?” Thor replies, so quiet that Tony barely catches it.

“For the moment.”

Thor nods and takes the chair next to Steve’s bed.

 

 

 

Sam is with Natasha in the bathroom, applying waterproof dressings fished from Clint’s substantial first aid kit to the Soldier’s gunshot wounds.Said man has no understanding of modesty or privacy as it relates to his body; that is proven when he asks Natasha if he can take a piss, and when she nods, he strips and does it in front of both of them.Sam’s just caught up on the man having to ask.It’s absolute control, forcing a person to ask if he can perform a basic bodily function.It’s absolute submission to be the person asking.

Natasha must be thinking about the same thing, because a moment later she says, “ _Soldat_ , for the duration of your stay here you do not need to ask to use the bathroom.Just go when you must.”

He stares at her from the corner of his eye.There is something wary in the gaze, but eventually he nods.

As Sam is finishing up with the dressings, Natasha gets the water going so it can heat up.Sam can admit that he resents the guy, resents him like hell for being part of the chain of events that got them here, but when he _jumps_ at the touch of the hot water and stares at them both in disbelief, it about kills him.It kills him a little more when it becomes clear that he has no idea what do to once he’s under the warm spray. 

Natasha sighs.“Sam, I can’t get the cast wet.”

He nods.His life has become pretty damn strange, but he doesn’t actually mind an excuse to get in the shower again.The days are getting colder, and since his morning patrol the cold has stuck in his bones.He undresses except for his underwear, not quite ready to bare all in front of Natasha, though something tells him if their situation was reversed she would have no qualms about getting naked in front of him.

There’s no frost in the Soldier’s eyes when he steps into the shower across from him.He’s docile.Sam can’t believe this is the same person that tried to kill them on the freeway and ripped the wing right off his suit on the helicarrier.

Sam gives him the washcloth and mimes for him to wash his face.He obeys, scrubbing at the layers of blood and sweat.Little by little, a real face emerges.The washcloth is filthy, too filthy to do the rest of him.Thankfully Clint seemed to anticipate that, because he’d left a stack of five.Sam reaches for the next one, soaps it up, and motions his way through it.The Soldier follows his lead.In time his skin is clean and pink, though still pale; he lost a lot of blood from that leg wound and Sam’s willing to bet he’s a little anemic.

Sam tells him to turn.He does, but he shows the first sign of nervousness, shoulders bunching.A hiss escapes him when Sam washes his back, especially when he touches that rope of scar tissue near his shoulder.He realizes that this man hasn’t been touched kindly in decades.For some reason he thinks of his grandmother, the times he’d washed her back when she was in the nursing home after breaking her hip.The trust, the closeness, the way she’d hummed in contentment at the warm water and the gentle pressure.

His hair is last.Sam’s done a lot of work with veterans, including homeless outreach with some folks who ran a mobile shower and barber shop, so he knows how bad unwashed hair can get.He reaches for the baby shampoo and thinks that Clint is one of the smartest humans he’s met in a while.The Soldier’s hair is thick with blood and grime, and it takes three washes for the water to run clear.He stares at Sam all the while, tear-free suds sliding between his eyelashes; he’s unwilling to take his eyes off Sam because he doesn’t trust these gentle touches.Doesn’t quite believe he’s allowed to enjoy fingers kneading his scalp.

Sam tells him to close his eyes for the conditioner.Natasha has to reinforce that one, and even then he only does it grudgingly.He’s waiting for the other shoe to drop.Waiting for punishment.

By the time they’re done, Sam doesn’t resent him anymore.

 

 

 

The Asset does not mind the man with the wings.He cares for the Target.Why that should raise him in esteem he does not know, but it is comforting on some level that he does not understand.

He is frightened, though.Cold water is for him, not hot, three minutes, purely so he does not offend.He is used to being watched but not touched.It makes him think of the rapist.It closes his throat for a minute and he is glad he’s facing away from the others, so they can’t see his weakness.

What is _vulnerable_?

It is this - naked with strangers, too afraid to stop them from doing whatever they want and thinking that he probably deserves it.

He doesn’t think the man with the wings would do that.In fact, he knows it.His handler has the right to do whatever she wishes with him, but she, too, cares for the Target, and that quells his fear.She is not like any handler he’s ever had.He doesn’t fool himself into believing she is not dangerous, though.That feeling of knowing her is insistent, and along with it is a leaden certainty that she can kill as easily as he can.

The shock of a soft towel is the same as the shock of hot water.It feels wrong on his skin.His skin itself feels wrong, scrubbed clean, like he’s more naked than naked.

The man with the wings (his handler calls him Sam, and so, he remembers, did the Target) asks him if he wants to shave.He does not understand the question.

“Tell him,” the redhead says.“Don’t ask him.”

“He deserves to have choices,” Sam says.

“You’re right,” she replies.“But right now he doesn’t understand choice.Tell him to shave or don’t.Those are your options.”

Sam looks like he has tasted something bitter.He does not order The Asset to shave.Instead he picks up a wide-tooth comb and begins to work the knots from his hair.The Asset is very still.Something worms beneath his consciousness, something he cannot grasp.

“He chose to bring Steve here,” Sam says under his breath a few minutes later.He puts the comb down, and with a finger beneath his chin, he tilts the Asset’s face up.He cannot meet his dark eyes.“You chose to save him.”

She crutches forward and takes him by the wrist.

“Wait here, _Soldat_ ,” she orders.Then she herds the one known as Sam out the door. 

 

 

 

“Sam,” she breathes, “Sam, I know it’s hard to watch this.I know that you’re just like Steve, that you bleed empathy and you’re a born advocate, but you can’t push him.I want him to have choices, too, but right now it’s too much.He’ll break down if you push too hard.It’s cruel to ask him to be something that he’s not.”

“What, like a person?” Sam says, and he’s angry.

Natasha closes her eyes.When she opens them they’re wounded, but determined.

“Clint can tell you this.He was my crutch when I left my old life.When I got out I found myself with choices and free time and I had no idea what to do with either of those things.So I ended up in a relationship with a man.He wasn’t a nice person.He was controlling, abusive, did things to me that I didn’t really want but didn’t understand that I could say no to.I craved being with him because he made things simple again - told me what to do, punished me if I didn’t do things right.I was pretty good at covering up the marks with makeup but Clint knew.He figures everything out eventually.So he came to my apartment early one day, while I was still getting ready, and saw the bruises.”

If Sam looked angry before, he is furious now.

“Clint, he understood me.Knew that I had no idea what a real relationship looked like.He sat me down and spelled out what consent was.Explained why I deserved to give it or not give it.Literally listed things that no person should ever do to me without my consent.He told me to come to him if I had questions or needed guidance.He was telling me what to do, the way I needed, but he was also leaving room for me to determine _how_ and _when_ I would do it.He knew that he had to ease me in to autonomy, not just drop it at my doorstep and expect that I’d know what to do with it.I won’t lie, it was hard for me to understand.It took a long time for me to get that making my own choices - being my own handler - wasn’t _bad_.I didn’t leave that man right away and Clint knew that but he didn’t force things, he just made me promise that I wouldn’t allow him to hurt me badly or kill me.”

“Jesus, Natasha,” Sam says.

“I was indoctrinated,” she replies.“My brain was twisted.Still is, in some ways.But when I tell you something about _him—_ ” she’s referencing the Soldier now, “you have to listen to me.If we don’t do this right it’s not going to end well.”

Sam nods, and he’s chastened.“What ever happened to that asshole who hurt you?”

Her lips twitch.“Oh, I’m pretty sure Clint put an arrow in his crotch after I finally ended things.” 

“No less than he deserved,” Sam mutters.“I’m sorry.I just…”

“Don’t apologize for being a good person, Sam.Just remember that right now he doesn’t need good, he needs careful.”

They both look up when a door opens down the hall, and Clint emerges with wild hair.He smiles sleepily at them, waves, and staggers toward the kitchen.The fondness that rises in her chest is familiar. 

“Okay,” Sam says.“Be a crutch.”

She could see that he really understood.That a crutch didn’t nullify or fix the injury, just supported a person while they healed on their own with time and care.He needs this lesson not just for the Soldier, but for Steve.It is better for him to learn it in this order.It will be even harder to watch Steve try to claw his way back from the things Hydra did to him. 

“You’ve got it,” she says, and sends him to raid Clint’s closet for clothes.The Soldier’s are beyond saving and she knows full well he’d think nothing of putting them back on or walking around naked.Sam returns with black Nike shorts with paint splatters on them and a worn gray t-shirt.Soft, broken-in, comfortable.

He understands, but maybe not the nuances.It’s okay.This she knows, deep in her gut, though she isn’t given to optimism.These are the people who can make it okay.

 

 

Doctor Fine comes and he’s worse for the wear.But of course the SHIELD physician who treated Nick Fury after Pierce’s assassination attempt would be an Insight target.The only reason he’s still alive is that he was in the Metro when the attack happened; being underground foiled the targeting scanners.They sent agents to his house when they realized it.He’s as good with a gun as any SHIELD agent, which is to say better than most, so they lost more men than they wanted in the attempt.When they couldn’t take him down easily they elected to blow a gas line and assumed he died in the subsequent explosion. 

There are burns on his left arm and the side of his face.On their way to being healed, but the arm, at least, will scar.Natasha tells him he looks good for a man who was blown up, and he replies that she looks good for a woman who got shot and survived a helicopter crash in the space of 36 hours.Bruce wonders how many times Fine has treated her, and for what range of ailments.He never thought about how often his teammates were broken until now.He doesn’t break.

Natasha, Sam, and Fine disappear into the bedroom where Steve and the Soldier wait.They’re in there for a long time.When they come out, Natasha gestures for him to join them.He’s agreed to help with any dressing changes or medical care that he can.

“Rogers needs surgery.The cheek and the nose, cosmetically, but that jaw - he’s not going to be able to eat real food until it’s fixed.I know a few good OMFS people.Romanov, I’ll send you their information and you can pick.He needs the surgery sooner than later.He’s underweight and starting to metabolize muscle, and we know how fast his metabolism is.We’ll have to continue the IV nutrition in the meantime.It isn’t enough for him but it’s what we can do.Beyond that, he’s experienced a significant brain injury.He survived that crash in the Arctic so I’m pretty sure he’ll make a full recovery, but without CT or MRI I can’t say what the timeline will be or what impacts you should expect.All I can say is that he’s not going to be the same, not for a while.”

That isn’t news to them.Bruce knew in the ten minutes it took to get Steve from the front door to the bedroom yesterday.He’s weaker on the left, slow to process, and his eyes aren’t right.One pupil is sluggish and when he’s tracking that same eye lags.The rest, it’s hard to tease out what might be psychological and what’s truly a neurological deficit.What frightens Bruce is that it’s been a month; if he’s still this impaired now, a month ago Steve must have been _helpless_ and likely very close to death. 

“And the Soldier?” Natasha asks.

“The shot to the flank is a clean through-and-through, nothing important hit.He got lucky.Not as much with the leg.It clipped his femoral vein.He should need surgery…hell, he should be dead, but somehow he isn’t.It’s healing itself.He’s lost a lot of blood, though.He’s grossly anemic, hemoglobin’s reading like a Jehovah’s Witness.”

None of them has any idea what that means, and Fine realizes that.

“It’s low,” he simplifies.“Really low, the kind of numbers we only see in people who are bleeding uncontrollably or who have a religious objection to receiving blood products.”

“So…” Natasha prompts.

“So, he’s fine.He probably feels like shit, could use a blood transfusion and a team of psychotherapists, but other than that he’s fine.”

“Clint’s a universal donor.”

“All right, if he’s agreeable I’ll get things going.But I wasn’t done talking about Rogers.”

They’re quiet, and Fine takes a breath.When he speaks his voice is low and they have to lean in to hear him.

“I know you said the Soldier told you he…intervened in the sexual assault before things escalated fully.But in my exam I found signs of trauma.Not acute, but recent.So it might not have happened when they were in that cell together, but it happened.”

“God damn it,” Sam breathes.“I am going to kill those Hydra sons of bitches.”

Fine scratches at the scaly, half-healed skin on his arm.“I think that’s a shared sentiment.”

“Not a word to the Soldier,” Nat says, decisive.“If he finds out…”

“He’ll tear the world down,” Bruce murmurs.They look at him, and he offers a shrug.“It’s what they Other Guy would do, if I let him out.” 

Natasha reaches over and squeezes his wrist.

Doctor Fine sighs and steps away.“I’ll get Barton.”

 

 

 

His home is turning into a funhouse.Clint shakes his head at the cacophany, but secretly he’s glad for it.Slowly they’re coming alive again and it’s not a moment too soon.He knows it’s only a matter of time before Hydra uses the Insight helicarriers again, and several hundred thousand people are wiped off the map. 

When Tony woke up after Doctor Fine’s visit he disappeared for nearly twelve hours, and returned with the makings of a lab.He took over Laura’s hobby room.His wife will not be pleased that her collage and scrapbook and and painting supplies have been relegated to the mudroom.

Tony and Bruce are in the “lab” now - most of the time, in fact.Tony said only that he helped build the engines that keep the helicarriers perpetually aloft.He knows how to disable and destroy them.What he really wants, though, is to figure out a way to _control_ them - to fly the ships where he wants them instead of Hydra.They can’t kill very many people hovering over the open ocean.Bruce has calculated a spot in the Pacific where they’d be out of range of every living soul on the planet.

For his part, Clint thinks they should destroy the helicarriers altogether, but their team is small and their supplies limited.The weakness that Nick Fury sought to exploit has no doubt been fixed; short of a hostile takeover of the ships and manually pointing the weapons arrays at one another, there’s no way they can manage it.If they were in better health there’s a chance, but as it stands, it’s Clint, Sam, Tony, Bruce, and Thor.Even they aren’t 100%; Tony and Thor are far from it, still reeling from the loss of Pepper and Jane, and Sam's keeping it together, but only just barely.

His dining room has been turned into an OR.It’s the only room in the house big enough to hold what they need - the lights, the machines, the number of people necessary to do a complicated and risky surgery.It’s risky because the doses of anesthesia Steve needs are much, much higher than a regular person, and they’re desperate to avoid him waking up in the middle of surgery.But even a super soldier has limits.Too much and he’ll stop breathing.

Sam had talked Steve through what they were going to do.He _was_ in there, he _did_ understand what was going on…it just took some extra time.Steve was able to sit up and sign the consent forms.Clint will never forget the Soldier’s look of absolute confusion at the whole thing.It’s clear that he had never once been offered an explanation or a choice when it came to surgery.With that arm of his, it stands to reason that he’s endured a lot of surgery.Clint hopes they used anesthesia on him but with what he now knows about Hydra, he doubts it.

The Soldier is…adjusting.They know he’s not eating or sleeping, going on day three now, but Natasha says not to force the issue.Just like with Steve, even super soldiers have limits and he’ll lose the battle to stay awake eventually.As for food, Natasha assures him that the compulsion to survive will win out; he’ll eat when he senses that not eating will render him unable to do what he needs to do. 

There’s only been one bump in the road; the night after the doctor visit he became anxious to the point of self-harm.Clint couldn’t help but wonder whether the blood that welled from his wrist was his or Clint’s or if they'd muddled together into something else entirely.So much for the transfusion.

Natasha fixed it by giving him a new mission. _Help Steve.Protect Steve.Help us help Steve._ He’s taken to it with laser focus.He prowls at the edge of the dining room now, making the doctors as nervous as he is.For the sake of the anesthesiologists, Clint hopes they get the dosage right.The Winter Soldier will probably murder them if Steve wakes up during surgery.

If he can get through it.He’s terrified when they actually start and he has to back away.Sam and Natasha are hard-pressed to leave Steve’s side, so Tony and Bruce bring him into the shelter of the lab.The surgeons are noticeably more comfortable with him gone.They get to work on Steve, and mercifully he stays out the entire time.

 

 

 

Tony watches the Soldier out of the corner of his eye.He’s sitting on the floor of the lab trying to breathe and failing more often than not.Tony knows a panic attack when he sees one.It’s a fair bet all the doctors and surgical tools are not his favorite things.Nor is seeing Steve cut open.That’s _none_ of their favorite thing.

“Breathe in through your nose,” Tony says.He keeps his focus on the schematic in front of him and his voice even.“Out through your mouth.Like this.”He demonstrates.Even though he’s not anxious it still feels good.Bruce is watching, unconsciously matching his breath.

It takes a solid five minutes, but the Soldier’s breath comes easier.More importantly, he listens to Tony.It’s been an uneasy truce and Tony knows he still has some work to do to win him over, but it’s a start.

“Is that what it was like for you after New York?” Bruce asks, in that shy, unassuming sniper way of his.

“Yes.”

“You ever get help?”

“Not enough, probably.”

Things go silent.Bruce is still watching, but really, he’s never _not_ watching.All that shy reserve is just there to create distance.Space from which to observe and decide if it’s safe to engage.He’s spent enough time in social situations with Bruce to know that he’s always walking on eggshells, even around people he knows.

A slight rise of Bruce’s chin tells him what his senses don’t; the Soldier’s snuck up on him again.Thankfully it seems that this time it’s sans murderous intent.He’s standing at Tony’s right elbow, eyes on the workbench.Curious.

He reaches out and picks up a circuit board.

“What is…?” 

He trails off and sets it down, fearful of the breach in protocol, muscles tense in expectation of discipline.Tony has to remind himself that the guy was born in 1917.He exists in the milieu of technology but doesn’t truly understand it unless it’s a gun or an explosive.

“It’s a circuit board.You know anything about electricity?Physics?”

The Soldier says nothing.Again Tony has to pull himself back from what is common knowledge to him; electricity was still _new_ in this man’s time.He’d seen how hard it was for Steve to adjust to everything being electronic.He hated the blue light.Said it gave him a headache.

“It connects parts of a machine together to allow power to flow from one part to another the way it needs to.Kind of like…kind of like cells in the body.Little parts to run a big whole.”He hopes the Soldier knows something of biology, or else it’s a lost cause.

“If…if one is…removed, or destroyed, it will…disrupt the machine?”He speaks haltingly, on guard.

“In some cases.A smart engineer builds in redundancies.Failsafes.”

“He was trying to eliminate redundancies,” the Soldier murmurs.“Disrupt the function of the…”

Quite suddenly, Tony understands what they’re really talking about.The Soldier steps back from the table and sits down on the floor near the doorway.He looks miserable.

“You’re right,” Tony continues, despite a warning look from Bruce.He’s never believed in pulling punches and the Soldier will get there on his own anyway.“They had to remove and replace components in all three helicarriers to reroute the targeting and weapons.It wouldn’t work without all three because Hydra has smart engineers who built in redundancies.”He breathes a jagged sigh.“I probably trained those engineers.”

“I stopped him.I destroyed the replacement components.”The Soldier’s face is pressed to his knees.His voice is muffled and choked when he speaks next.“It’s my fault they…h-hurt him.My f-fault all those people are dead.” 

“It’s Hydra’s fault,” Bruce says firmly.“They built the weapons, they gave the orders.Not you.” 

The metal fist thumps down on the wood floor, hard enough to clang but not damage.The Soldier looks up and the pain in his face is lacerating in its intensity.

“I am the fist of Hydra. _I am the fist of Hydra_.”

“Not anymore,” Bruce says.

Tears stream down the Soldier’s face.It’s _guilt_.Tony feels nauseated; he can’t imagine the crush of it.

“Bruce,” he says, voice shaky, “happy juice.”

“No,” Bruce replies, and Tony stares at him.“No,” Bruce says again, with conviction.“It doesn’t make it go away.”

Tony knows he’s right but it hurts.It hurts the same way it does in his own chest when he thinks about designing the fucking engine turbines.

He, too, was the fist of Hydra.

 

 

 

The Winter Soldier cries himself to sleep and it’s a good thing he’s in dreamland when Steve comes to after surgery.He’s in pain, lots of it.The surgeons warned that he might be; it was a long surgery and a lot was done.He already looks better.Swollen, but more like himself.

Sam blinks back tears.It’s so hard to see him in pain.He’s still a bit out of it from the anesthesia and the stubborn stoicism he usually puts on in the face of discomfort is beyond his reach.Steve is crying and it’s fucking terrible.

“Isn’t there something stronger?” Sam asks, frustration chafing his nerves.

“No,” Dr. Fine says.“Nothing legal and easily obtainable, anyway.”

“Then can’t you give him more of what we have?”

“He’s already had enough to kill a couple of elephants.It’s no different than the anesthesia, Sam.I’m sorry.I can’t risk him going into respiratory distress.”

Sam squeezes his eyes closed, feels his control wavering.Usually he’s pretty good at compartmentalizing but as he’s pointed out to many others in his career, sometimes the compartment gets full.He needs to break down, just get the cry out already, but there hasn’t been time for self-care when so many others need him.

He feels Dr. Fine’s hand on his shoulder.

“He won’t remember this,” the doctor says.“It’ll be better in the morning.I swear.”

 

 

 

And it is better in the morning.Steve is still and peaceful in his bed, breathing evenly.So is the Soldier.As Clint is brewing the first pot of coffee, Tony emerges from the lab in true insomniac fashion and announces he’s figured out how to control the helicarrier engines.They toast with a bit of Irish Cream spiked coffee.Then, mid-breakfast (omelets courtesy of Bruce), Thor arrives after two days out searching, and Darcy is with him. 

Natasha doesn’t kid herself that Tony’s plan won’t involve stupid levels of danger and precision, or that any of them are actually ready for it.But for the first time in a while, there’s a glimmer of hope.She pours a little more Irish Cream into her second cup of coffee and allows herself to smile. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a rough one for Steve, so again, heed the warnings.

His face hurts.

Steve shifts, winces, which makes it hurt more.Right.Surgery.

Incredible, that he’d never needed it before.Even with his assortment of ills before the serum, surgery was never brought up.Or maybe it was and his mother just couldn’t afford it, so she didn’t tell him; that he’d never know.

This he does know: surgery hurts.

But his head and face feel better, somehow, like things aren’t out of place anymore.He feels the pressure of swelling, the tautness of an IV taped to his right hand.The low pound of a headache that has been a constant companion since…

_Ping ping ping._

Oh.Monitors.Come to think of it, his heart is a little fast, fluttery like it used to be.

“Do you require pain medicine, Captain Rogers?” a pleasant voice asks.It takes him a moment to find the name in the shredded corridors of his mind.JARVIS.“The others are breaking their fast and I have been instructed to monitor and assess your needs.It has been six hours since your last dosage of pain medication.You are eligible for more at your request.”

Six hours, a century - it’s mostly meaningless, time, because Tony told him it’s mid-October.Almost five weeks have passed since the helicarriers.Time made endless by pain and cruel in its capacity to slip through his grasping fingers.How many people has Hydra killed in five weeks?How many times had they—had they—

“Captain Rogers?Are you in distress?”

It hurts.And that spot on his left lower lip is still numb, his cheek _burns_ and his teeth ache.Teeth.Oh, they fixed his teeth.Another thing he’d never needed, in spite of how many times he’d been punched in the face during the fights.The fights where Bucky—

— _your pal, your buddy, your Bucky—_

He can hear Rumlow’s voice like it’s right there, right at his ear.Talking about how he’d rather fuck The Asset but would settle for Captain America. _You must really fucking love him, how romantic_ , dripping derision but breathless with the thrill of causing pain.Rumlow made sure it hurt.

Wolves don’t always hide in sheep’s clothing.Sometimes they are wolves all along, and you foolishly think you aren’t prey.

He understands, in a slow, linear way, that they wanted to connect the pain and Bucky together in his mind.Make him suffer not just to save him, but to _want_ to save him.Make him hate the thing he loves, and hate himself for being weak enough to be trapped in the threads they’ve woven together.

_You’re not restrained,_ Pierce would chide, blunt hands touching him, prodding bruises to fresh swells of pain. _I can’t fight you.I saw how you escaped that elevator.If you want to go we can’t stop you.Why let one man imprison you?_

All the while that man was on the screen, crouched, red laser dot between his eyes or on the back of his head.

They tried to make him hate Bucky.First just watching him on the closed circuit TV, gun always trained on him, the executioner only feet away sometimes.Forcing Steve to do or endure things to stop them pulling the trigger because _he's useless now, just trash to be taken out, you made him that way, you destroyed our favorite weapon._

Then in the cell, hollow eyes watching him as he was beaten almost to death.Shocked, burned, choked.That hurt like rape never could.His best friend who couldn’t even stand to see him take a drunk amateur’s most ineffective punch, motionless.Distant.Placating. _Gone._

But not so gone, maybe, with the rasp of metal on his jaw and the pinch of cold against his neck.Confused tears in blue eyes that weren’t the same as they’d been a week before.An offer of death instead of just indifference.A great kindness in what was left of Bucky’s mind.

They weren’t getting what they wanted.

So in they sent _that man_ and Rumlow and Steve knew, he knew what they were going to try to do and he could stand it alone, really, but not in front of Bucky.Not in the gaze of eyes that had just begun to understand how to care, maybe how to remember.But _that man_ came at him first instead of Rumlow and Steve knew in his gut that Rumlow _would_ pull the trigger.He would do it so he could feast on the pain it would inflict on Steve to watch Bucky die, and none of it would change the outcome.

_Learned helplessness._

“Captain Rogers?I am summoning the others.I am sorry for your distress.I will play a selection of soothing music.It will help if you breathe slowly—”

JARVIS is a machine and doesn’t know it’s impossible to breathe with bile edging up your throat, or when your insides begin to contract.

“JARVIS, a little sooner next time,” he hears Tony say, and the garbage can is under him just in time, put there by Sam’s hands.

There’s nothing in him but it all has to come out anyway, bile and dry heaves, and _God it hurts_ , the pressure in his face and head, but he can’t stop.Not until Sam and Tony are both muscled aside and a cool metal hand touches his forehead.Bucky’s face swims into his view.Clean, no longer in the grim uniform of death that had spooked him so badly when Tony first pulled him from the abyss.

His eyes are hard but present.Not Bucky, but not the man from the freeway and the helicarrier, or even the man from the cell.Steve closes his eyes and leans into the cool touch; it feels good on his feverish skin, on the throbbing mess that is his face.

“Do you think it’s the anesthesia?” Tony asks.

“Or the ten billion milligrams of dilaudid, yeah,” Bruce says.

“Nausea and vomiting are common side effects of both general anesthesia and opioids,” JARVIS offers helpfully from Tony’s cell phone, where it sits on the nightstand.“Zofran or Phenergan may moderate the effects.”

“Doc Fine left some Zofran,” Clint says.“Guys, give him some air.”

 

 

 

Darcy’s hand threads into his.She is not scared by much of anything, but Thor supposes the confrontation of the fact that heroes are not impervious is frightening.He did not initially understand how the human public would cling to the Avengers.What a comfort it is to them that people stronger than themselves, seemingly immortal, are there to protect them.He can understand her reaction.A titan toppled, and a friend, at that.

“We’re going to kill whoever did this, right?” she asks.She doesn’t just mean Steve.

“Yes,” Thor answers, matter-of-fact.“I believe that we are.” 

 

 

 

The surgeons, he is forced to admit, did a good job.The Target - _Steve_ , his handler ordered him to call him by his name - looks better.Swollen and bruised but things are where they’re supposed to be.His face will not be perfect, but…

_It never was.Nose too big, ears stuck out too far._

Oh. 

Something balloons in his chest.It is warm but anxious, nameless.It makes him run a thumb across his right eyebrow and ask, “Steve, are you in pain?”

It is a sensation of crumpling when Steve nods.It is the tremor in The Asset’s hands when he backs away so the handler named Dr. Banner can push something into Steve’s IV.It is the relief when the tension on Steve’s face eases and his heart rate comes down.

The Asset knows why he cried last night, but not why he cries now.He leaves so Steve cannot see it.He doesn’t know why he does that, either.

A new person sits next to him on the couch.She is…pleasant in appearance.No. _Pretty_ , with dark hair and dark lips, and there is a vague shape in his mind of someone he might have known, once.He glances up, unsure what to expect.His handler is there, and the tall blond man, both watching from the kitchen at a distance that looks casual but isn’t.

“I’m Darcy,” the new woman says.She holds out a cardboard box with soft scraps of paper poking out of it.

He takes one because he thinks it is what she wants.When he does not move, she eases it from his hand and reaches out.Slow, non-threatening.Unafraid.His eyes go again to his handler.Her chin angles down ever so slightly - a nod.

He allows the woman called Darcy to dry his tears.It is inadequate.They do not stop.

“I do not…know why…”

But he does.

_I let them do it.I let them.I let them._

“I - I c-cannot complete th-this mission,” he grinds out.

_I have already failed.I didn’t protect him.I didn’t help him._

“You’re the only one who can complete this mission,” the redhead says.“And you will.”

“I did not p-protect Steve.”

“It wasn’t your mission, then.”

A part of him screams. _Screams_ with the knowledge that yes it was, it was _always_ his mission to protect Steve.It’s paired with flashes of color and texture - blue wool, matte gunmetal with a cold gleam, a pale blue shimmer so bright it hurt the eyes and made something turn into nothing before them.And red.Wet, thick, warm, at the seam of a lip, the arch of a brow.In grass, in snow.On pavement, dripping from that too-big nose. 

He smells iron.He’s bitten his lip, and it’s bleeding.

“Some people are hard to protect,” Darcy says.“Because they’re stubborn, and they never protect themselves.”

He looks up at them, the three faces that watch him so closely.The blond man has visibly flinched at Darcy’s words.He is in pain, like Steve, though there are no visible marks on him. 

“He was protecting _me_ ,” The Asset whispers.He squeezes his eyes shut against a memory of Secretary Pierce.A stinging slap, the flash of both pleasure and disappointment in his eyes.

_I need you to do it_

_one_

_last_

_time._

He was broken and they knew it, and they were going to kill him after his last mission.The mission to kill, and then capture Steve.He was kept alive for the sole purpose of tormenting Steve.Steve, who would try to protect him.Who tried to talk to him while they fought, to deter him from the mission.

_People are gonna die, Buck._

_Please don’t make me do this._

But _why?_ Why would Steve…and why, when, _what_ are the flashes and the feelings, and these people, Steve’s friends, why haven’t they killed him?Why, after what he’s done? 

 

 

Steve gets better with every hour that passes.He doesn’t talk and they assume it’s because his mouth and jaw hurt like a bitch, but he’s awake and sitting up and when Bruce gives him a pen he writes SHOWER and TV on his hand.Sam ends up in the bathroom with Steve and the Soldier, who will not leave his side - not even in the shower.He just shakes his head.In truth, it’s hard to be bothered by how seriously the Soldier is taking the mission Natasha gave him; he’s careful to avoid Steve’s incisions when he washes his hair with a glance at Sam that says _thank you for the lesson_ , and he honest to God gets down on the floor and washes between Steve’s toes.Sam just hopes he understands that this isn’t required.Steve is capable of doing it himself, or at least he will be, soon.

The look on Steve’s face might be easier to decipher if he wasn’t still swollen.He doesn’t protest, though.He’s tired.It’s the most activity he’s done in a while and by the time they get him to the living room for TV, he’s half asleep.

He perks up when the news comes on, and even more so when there’s an announcement of a presidential press conference.Tony lifts the remote to change the channel out of knee-jerk reflex.

“No,” Sam says sharply.

Tony looks at him like he’s nuts.“You sure?”

Sam looks at Steve.He nods, clear-eyed.He wants to know what’s going on.It doesn’t escape his notice that the Soldier is also paying close attention to the TV from behind the shelter of his hair.

“It ain’t pretty, Steve,” Tony mutters.He’s not wrong.The President, Vice President, and Speaker of the House were all killed in the Insight attacks.The person that strides up to the podium is someone Sam would like to punch in his pouchy, self-satisfied face.

He can tell what expression Steve’s wearing now, swelling and all.Pure dismay.His brows twitch as he does the math, and his shoulders drop.Somehow that shitbag Stern, Jasper Sitwell’s favorite lunch date, convinced the Senate to elect him Senate President pro tempore two weeks before the Insight launch.Sam’s willing to bet the last one, an ancient Senator from Montana, was helped along to his deathbed.It’s only too convenient.The Senate President is supposed to be the longest-serving majority member of the Senate, which Stern is not, but for some reason they picked him.Usually it’s just a title, occasionally a call to preside over the Senate.But what they all forgot is that it’s third in line to succeed the president in times of crisis.Stern is right where Hydra wants him to be.

“If I’d finished the file dump, that sleazebag wouldn’t be standing up there,” Natasha growls.

“You were a little busy trying not to die,” Sam responds.

She touches her chest reflexively.Bruce squeezes her shoulder and hands her a cup of herbal tea.Sam almost laughs when he picks up another mug and delivers it to the Soldier.The man holds the mug like it is a basket of snakes.

“Is that the last one?” Darcy asks, inhaling.“Apple Cinnamon is my favorite.”

They are all shocked when the Soldier immediately holds it out to her.

“No,” she says, not missing a beat.“You have that one, it’s okay.”

He looks around, uncertain.Sam thinks that he’s probably programmed to defer to his handler’s needs at all times.This confuses him, maybe feels like a trap.He expects him to look at Natasha for confirmation.Instead, he looks at Steve.Steve nods.He takes a tentative sip while Darcy and Bruce haggle over the last Apple Cinnamon teabag; Darcy wins.Bruce settles for something dubiously entitled Tension Tamer, which at the very least makes Clint chuckle and Tony crack a smile. 

“We’re elderly,” Tony says, Lemon Zinger in hand.“Just have to watch Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune before turning in at 8 pm.Isn’t that what you nonagenarians do?” he asks, looking pointedly at Steve.They all know jokes are a coping mechanism for Tony and he’s desperately reaching for something normal.

Steve looks back at him.And then, slowly, he raises his right hand and gives Tony the finger. 

The relief Sam feels is profound.Steve isn’t okay, but he hasn’t disappeared completely.And he would _swear_ that he saw the faintest trace of a smirk on the Soldier’s face before he takes another sip of the tea.It’s the first thing he’s ingested other than water since arrival.Food can’t be far behind.

“Tony,” Clint announces, “I do believe you just got owned.”

 

 

 

His head is starting to throb again, but it’s tolerable.Steve leans back and listens to the sounds of life as it is now.There’s the hum of the IV pump.He’s glad for it.They’re going to want him to eat when the swelling in his mouth goes down but even the thought of food - the scent of that evening’s tea -provoked instant nausea. 

There’s the whir of Bucky’s arm.The scratch of his pen.Bruce gave him a notebook and a few pens and he’s sitting Indian style on the twin bed, intensely focused on whatever he’s writing.If Steve has to guess, he’s trying to piece things together.

As depressing as reality is, Steve is glad he watched the press conference.Now he knows how Hydra is spinning it.It’s them, of course, all them - the Avengers, enhanced people and mutants - who built and used the helicarriers in a bid for world dominance.SHIELD’s heroics stopped them and they’ve taken over control of the helicarriers.Hydra holds all the highest offices in the land and the public’s adoration for halting the death toll at _only_ 750,322. 

It’s genius.Not only has it turned the public against them, it’s also set up a war of sorts.Anytime Hydra uses the helicarriers it can simply be blamed on superhumans

regaining control of them.After all, regular humans can only do so much against their mutant and enhanced counterparts.They’ll always prevail in the end, with heart and soul and bigger guns, but not before millions more die.Victims of a genocide supposedly instigated by the people in this house.

He’s reminded of the Star Wars movies he watched with Clint.Stern is no Palpatine, but Alexander Pierce…

Alexander Pierce needs to die. 

Natasha needs to finish that data dump. 

Those helicarriers need to be ripped from the sky and pulverized to grains of sand.

And it all needs to be done carefully, so the world can tell the good guys from the bad.

Steve thinks that kind of planning would be beyond him even if he wasn’t brain injured.It’s got to be Tony and Bruce and Natasha.They're the only ones capable of such mental contortion.

He thinks his brain is a lot better now than it had been in the cell.His left arm and leg are getting stronger.He can stay awake and his thoughts make sense.It just takes him longer to think and understand than usual, and his emotions seem outside his control basically all the time.The number of times he had to will back tears (both sad and anxious) in the shower was ridiculous.Thank God water was running down his face anyway.And thank God Sam had thought to take down the mirror.He must look like absolute shit if they don’t want him to see himself.

He _feels_ like absolute shit.His body is weak, his skin tight, his bones too close to the surface.Everywhere he touches he feels the scars.They’re fading now, and he’s sure he scars less dramatically than most, but instinctively he knows there’s no erasing what Hydra did to him.His fingers trail across the star they’d burned into his chest, tracing its points.

He feels like old Steve, the skinny asthmatic, gutted with grief and humiliation when Bucky left for the war and he couldn’t follow.And _angry_.Angry at the hand he was dealt, because there was _so much more_ inside him.

Now he feels like there’s nothing.Like he’s hollow, brittle, old leather that falls apart in your hands.The only thing that keeps his heart beating and his mind from devouring itself is something that lives outside the confines of his body.It’s the man on the other bed who’s pressing just a little too hard as he writes, cursing under his breath in Russian when he pokes holes in the paper.

“Steve?”

The direct voice makes him jump, and his heart races with adrenaline.It’s just Bucky.It’s just him.He meets his eyes.

“You have been crying for ten minutes.”

He wishes that voice wasn’t so robotic.JARVIS has more inflection, and supposedly he’s the machine.

The first thing that comes to mind is an apology. _I’m sorry.I’m sorry I have pathetic amounts of emotion that my addled brain wants to shoot out my eyelids._ He tries to make himself say it but he has no voice. 

“Dr. Banner has shown me an article.Scientists have looked at tears under a microscope.”He isn’t looking at Steve anymore; his eyes are fixed on the notebook, where he’s repetitively scribbling.A calming, simple, non-demanding task.Not like talking.“They found that different emotions produce different tears and some people have made art out of it.”He says art like he doesn’t know what the word means.Bucky turns the notebook, starts shading against the original grain.“He said it is okay to cry, everyone cries, and if I want he will let me see under the microscope next time.Do you wish for me to ask him to see yours?”

There is not enough karmic divinity in the world to give Bruce Banner what he deserves in this lifetime, or the next one.

It makes Steve cry harder, but there’s fondness and gratitude and comfort in it.It’s the knowledge that he’s here with his odd little family, that they accept Bucky, that he himself is _safe._ Safe to fall apart and come back together.

His lack of response and continued crying must spook Bucky, because he gets up and summons whoever is closest.It’s Thor, and though the man looks like he has been crying himself - red-eyed, weak-limbed, and Steve realizes, _oh God, Jane and Erik_ \- he sits next to Steve ready to give of himself.Bucky is watching with intense concentration, trying to learn how to comfort. 

And Steve’s not broken enough that he can’t give back.Not so afraid of touch that he can’t reach out.He leans forward, left hand clumsy, and pulls Thor into his chest.

 

 

They keep telling him Steve isn't the same, won’t be the same, but Thor knows now that they’re wrong.His heart is strong beneath Thor’s ear.His hand is sure in his hair.It’s more demonstrative than he would have been, before, but it’s still him.

Steve cares more for others than himself.He was born that way.Thor had to learn.Had to learn how to see the wretchedness in people and love them anyway.He thinks that of all the humans he’s met, Steve stands the greatest chance of ever being able to lift Mjolnir.

The Soldier is looking at him with accusing eyes.He can read their meaning well enough; _you’re supposed to be giving, not taking._ He does not understand that for Steve, this _is_ giving.

_You can drink nothing from an empty vessel,_ his mother’s voice echoes in his head. _Let your tears fill it when nothing else can._

And the ache of loss is too much, like it was half an hour ago when he did the same thing to Darcy.It’s very different to be leaning into Steve’s chest, hard where Darcy is soft, smelling like medicine and blood and some vaguely masculine body cleanser instead of warm spiced vanilla.He hates that humans can give so freely of their time and their hearts when they have so little of the former.

It is beautiful, and it is unfair.

 

 

 

These are, without a doubt, the strangest handlers he has ever had.But Steve has stopped crying.The Asset does not know what to make of it, except that he is beginning to suspect that they all share the same mission.

He squints.

What is _team?_

 

 

Tony shakes his head and mutters, “Christ, Rogers, let someone take care of you for a hot second.”

Bruce is the only one who hears him.

“You should take your own advice.”He quirks an eyebrow, knowing that Tony is looking but not looking at him.“My door’s open.”

“Yeah, I’ll be right in.” 

It’s dismissive, but Bruce is both sly and patient, so it passes into the void as they go their separate ways for the evening - Tony back to the lab, and Bruce to his bed for some Clint Barton mandated sleep.Because apparently nobody is good for shit without it, and that’s a direct quote. 

 

 

 

Clint knows the best way to express anything to Natasha is with unflinching bluntness.She can spin webs with words and so can he, when needed, but direct is still best.

“Nat,” he says, “give up the booze or the Percocet.I don’t care which.But you can’t do both, it’ll kill you.”

There’s a pause, but she smiles.The caught-out, you-know-me-better-than-me smile.She reaches for the drawer and hands him the pills.

“It hasn’t hurt in a week.”

“Your _broken bones_ haven’t hurt in a week,” he clarifies.

She tilts her head in agreement.It’s the most he’ll get.He slips the pills into his pocket.He won’t flush them; the future is fucking _grim_ and everyone’s gonna take more hits before they win or lose.But he’ll hide them.He knows she’ll find them if she really wants them, but like the Winter Soldier, she has a mission now and she’s not trying to fuck it up.She’s just trying to temper the effects of raking herself over hot coals.

“Clint?”

“Yeah, Nat?”

“Buy me some fucking vodka, something good, or so help me…”

It’s his turn to smile.He’s not anybody’s mama.He knows she’ll drink too much sometimes, but it’s nothing he hasn’t done, nothing she hasn’t sat through for him while he got it out of his system.That’s all it is.Once the cast comes off and she’s back on her feet, back with gun and garrote, she won’t need the vodka.

Just a few more weeks.

“Okay.I’ll go in the morning.”

She nods, and for a moment she looks like she did years back when she was thinking about taking his clothes off.Clint gives her a look in return - _had your chance, baby -_ and she smiles for real.

“Go visit Laura and the kids tomorrow. _After_ you buy my vodka.We’ll be okay until Tony’s done with the modifications to Wilson’s wingsuit.”

 

 

 

It’s Darcy who is thawing the ice.Second to Steve, of course.One before Bruce.Tony doesn’t know where he stands in the ranking but he has an idea of how to boost himself.

Music.

In the rare times when the Soldier isn’t with Steve - like, say, when he’s in the bathroom, or the shower, or has somehow mutely communicated to the other man that he needs alone time, which went over about as well as a lead balloon the first time, when Natasha talked to both of them—

_He’s allowed to be alone, Soldat.Steve, if you try to hurt yourself I swear to God I will throttle you_ and the flash of _horror_ and then _teeth_ on the pale face, and Steve’s right hand clamping onto him and not letting go is the only thing that saved Natasha.And the Soldier’s unreachable for the rest of the day, curled tight in the terror of retribution for trying to attack his handler.

It’s fucked.It’s so fucked.

So is the way he blanches and withdraws when Tony catches him sitting in Darcy’s doorway listening to whatever music she has on.She’s always playing something - alternative, indie, grunge, classic rock, whatever the bottomless well of internet radio will bring her - and the Soldier is always listening.Sometimes drifting off with his cheek on his knees.Sigur Ros did that. 

But he knows that Tony saw him, and he knows that to show preference to anything means there is something they can take away from him.Something they can use against him.He is careful not to be caught in Darcy’s doorway again.If his hearing is anywhere near as good as Steve’s, though, he probably still listens to the music.

So Tony has JARVIS buy a cheap iPod on Amazon and loads it with one album at a time.Because he's a peculiar brand of sadomasochist he puts _Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness_ on there first and gives it to him to listen to with strict orders to report back with his favorite song when he’s ready.Bruce would scold him.The lyrics are _loaded._ He knows it.But music is one of the only ways he’s ever successfully dealt with emotions, and if the mindfucked assassin likes music it might work for him, too.

It takes two days, but the Soldier edges into the lab while he’s cursing a blue streak at Wilson’s wingsuit.Seriously, whoever designed this thing had shit for brains.He’s so involved in indulging his irritation that he doesn’t notice.He finds the iPod and a scrap of paper on the workbench.The paper says _Bodies_.

“All my blisters now revealed, in the darkness of my dreams…” Tony murmurs. 

_Love is suicide._

“You taking up poetry?” Bruce says, striding into the lab.

“Nope,” he answers succinctly, and stuffs the iPod in his pocket.

That night he loads the greatest hits of Janis Joplin and her various accompanying bands onto the iPod and hides it under the notebook on his bed when he’s in the bathroom.He doesn’t like that, but hey, turnabout’s fair play.

 

 

 

The mission is fliers only.So that means Tony, Thor, and Sam. One for each helicarrier.Thor worries, as always, about fully comprehending what Tony needs him to do.He's not stupid by any means but this is quite literally not his world, and his understanding of the things Tony designs remains limited. 

“You're a god,” Sam says.“You'll be fine.”

Darcy is more helpful.“Think of Loki’s illusions,” she says, eyes soft. “You're just going to fool the thing into doing what you want with JARVIS’s help.”

He has to admit, Loki is better suited for this kind of thing.Thor is not subtle.But if this is how they must fight, so be it.He will learn stealth.

Tomorrow is the day.Well, today, now, because it is well after midnight.Tony was insistent on working on Sam’s wingsuit to make sure it's not traceable.A wise precaution, but one that gave Tony a bit of trouble, and resulted in him rebuilding it altogether with notable improvements. 

Thor has always thought that so much ingenuity existing in one person borders on dangerous.Lucky for the universe, Tony had Pepper to moderate him. Now Bruce has stepped into the role, or he’s trying to with Tony _kicking and screaming the whole way,_ according to Clint - but Bruce is so smart that Thor imagines eventually the two of them will get carried away.Natasha is next in line to check the reins, he thinks.

There wasn't much to occupy them while they waited. Thor focused on doing what he could for Steven and his friend. 

Steve is emerging, however slowly.Thor is on watch tonight – there are two now, perimeter watch and what Natasha has sardonically dubbed Fossil Watch.At the rustle of sheets he looks up from the book Bruce gave him to see Steve pulling himself to the edge of the bed. It's more effort than it should be, but he makes it. He holds his hands out. Thor tries to set the book down gracefully and fails.There's a flicker of humor in Steve’s eyes.It's short-lived, replaced by a wince when Thor helps him to his feet.

They are about the same height.Thor has never shied away from eye contact but it's intense. Steve is his friend, yet they had never had cause to be this close until recently, never communicated in this way before. It's intimate, searching…Steve says much with his gaze and Thor plans to pay closer attention to his eyes than his mouth, going forward.

He’ll have to. Even with his jaw fixed, he hasn't said a word.The doctors assured the team that nothing is wrong, physically, and from what they can tell the language centers of his brain are intact. He's just not talking. 

Bruce and Sam think it's from the trauma.Thor agrees, but he isn’t as troubled by it as the others.His people allow themselves time to mourn, to do whatever they need to in order to recover from a loss.That includes the pursuit of silence.It’s not strange, where he comes from, for those in mourning to be mute for a time. 

The people of Midgard just try to keep going.He's been caught up in it, being here; his mourning for Jane and Erik is both incomplete and woefully inadequate.He understands that the situation does not afford time, but also that some of his teammates think that pushing forward at a punishing pace can take the place of grief.Tony is the worst example.Natasha is a close second.

He will not let them rush Steve.So he stands with him, eyes never wavering, seeing what lives beneath the surface.In time Steve indicates the door with a slight decline of his head.

The Soldier materializes as they begin to move. He's a silent shadow to Steve; Thor relinquishes Steve’s right arm to the other man, and together they help him walk into the hallway.He’s stronger but that left leg still wants to give out on him sometimes, and his balance isn’t perfect.Steve steers them toward the front door.He wants air.

It's chilly outside and his feet are bare.Thor trusts him to his friend.He turns back for socks, slippers, and a blanket.When he returns, Steve is settled into an Adirondack chair on the porch.He accepts the blanket and the footwear.He has to struggle with his left leg a bit, but it obeys and he's shielded from the cold of his own volition.That's important, he knows – Sam said they'd all have to fight the urge to do things for him.It's a small thing, but the ability to control even small things is deeply therapeutic after what he's gone through.

Steve shifts his feet underneath him so more of him is under the blanket. Then he tilts his head up to look at the stars.Thor allows his attention to shift to the other man – James.The others don't like to call him that.Thor respects Natasha's assertion that they can't push an identity on him, but he thinks that James is more present than any of them realize.Steve is looking at the stars; James is looking at Steve as if he _is_ the stars.And it’s not a one-sided fascination.

There is a connection here, spanning years and transcending both wounds and words.

It's hard for people with short lifespans to understand, perhaps.They live in the thrall of finity.Everything takes on meaning when time is limited.But when there is no bookend to life, only certain relationships matter.This is one of those relationships.He has not seen many of them here on Midgard.Humans connect, but few grow root and branch together until it is impossible to separate one from the other.

They stargaze for a time - Steve tracing lines of constellations, James the lines of scars, and Thor the space between the two men.Then, haltingly, James holds out the book Thor was reading. _The Fellowship of the Ring._

Bruce said he would like it, and he was right.It is a fine tale.He’s halfway through, but he understands the unspoken request.He starts from the beginning and reads out loud.

James curls into his chair, a mirror image of Steve.He has no blanket but doesn’t seem to need one.Thor has been told he has a comforting voice but he supposes he must believe it when, twenty minutes later, Steven is asleep and James is fighting the urge to join him.

He stops and folds the corner of the page to mark it.It’s a bad habit of Darcy’s that he picked up.Jane hated it.

It’s his turn to look up, to take a moment to regret that he does not know this patch of sky that Jane loved so much.It is what brought them together and he cannot name one single star.

“What are you?” James says softly.

A smile tugs at Thor’s lips; he had asked Bruce the same question about James not so long ago.

“I am Thor, son of Odin, Crown Prince of Asgard and Protector of the Nine Realms.”

His dark brows knit.Those words and titles don’t mean anything to him, but he knows, instinctively, that Thor is different.

“I am not of this world,” Thor simplifies.There is a pause as James digests that.

“Then why do you fight for it?” he asks.

Thor considers his response.James does not speak often; he fears his own voice, anticipates punishment that he does not yet understand will never come in this company.He must judge the question important, to bare his belly.

“Because these are good people, and theirs is a worthy cause.And because this is where my heart took root.” 

Nothing more is said, and they stay on the porch another two hours or so until sunrise.Sam shakes his head and mutters that they’re insane when he finds them there.Then he and Natasha bring morning libations.Mint tea for Thor, coffee for Steve which he holds in his hands and smells, but doesn’t drink, and apple cinnamon tea for James. 

The five of them sit there watching the morning mist curl over the acreage. 

 

 

 

It’s that night, when they go, that it hits him like a veritable ton of bricks.Except maybe he’d fare better with a ton of bricks.Clint’s pretty sure Steve has been there, done that.But twenty minutes after Tony, Thor, and Sam leave, it happens.One minute Steve’s fine, the next he’s gasping for breath and crouching down against the couch with his hands over his head.

“Fuck,” Clint breathes.He’s strung tight himself and that’s to say nothing of Natasha, who is already pounding a glass of vodka.None of them are any good at sitting out.Well, except…

“They’re going to be fine,” Bruce says, immediately crouching down with him.“Steve, they’re going to be _fine_.”

If a person can scream with his eyes, Steve is doing it.Clint wants to kill about ten thousand Hydra agents.

“Hydra doesn’t know they’re coming and they’re not going to engage.In and out.No one will know until the helicarriers start moving.Steve.Steve, it’s going to be okay.They’re coming back.”

 

 

 

_He can’t, they can’t, it’s rushing at him, little green pieces of plastic falling from a metal hand and guns shaking beneath him and SO MANY PEOPLE ARE DYING BECAUSE OF HIM BECAUSE OF BUCKY BECAUSE OF STEVE FUCKING ROGERS USELESS PIECE OF SHIT take that dick Rogers, you like it, look at this little fairy trying to fight, stiff wind would knock him over, maybe he’s really got a cunt in those trousers, wanna give us a show Rogers, prove you ain’t a dame_ —

 

 

 

Clint would like to kill infinity Hydra agents.Infinity times infinity to the twelfth power.Tony would tell him that’s not a thing. 

Thank God Bruce is here.The angriest man in the room is also the calmest, the most non-threatening, and the best at de-escalation.Personal fucking experience, he’s sure.

 

 

 

_If they hurt Tony and Thor and Sam he’ll kill them he’ll kill everyone he’ll kill himself I can’t do this without you Buck, I am so weak, don’t watch, don’t LOOK AT ME LIKE THAT, Bruce says they’ll come back but I DIDN’T COME BACK, how could he let them go how could he let them, what kind of monster was he who let his friends go to THAT don’thurttonythorsamtonythorsam please God come back—_

 

 

 

Target Steve is very, very upset.The Asset’s breathing picks up and he frowns.Is it…is it possible that Steve being upset makes _him_ upset?Of course.He is not completing his mission if Steve Is Upset.He is failing.

_Failure not acceptable._

_Failure dangerous._

_Failure pain._

_Pain._

_Pain._

_PAIN._

 

 

 

“Oh, Jesus, not _both_ of them,” Natasha says, and she looks like she just got out, all tight and jittery around the eyes, and Clint thinks he’s about to have _three_ breakdowns on his hands and he, Bruce, and Darcy can’t possibly handle _these three_ imploding at the same time.

Where is that fucking _happy juice_ Tony’s always talking about?

 

 

 

A choked sound escapes the Asset as reality dissolves and he is somewhere else.There is a small person, _blue eyes and freckles and bird bones and sandy hair_ like in the dreams.This person cannot breathe and he touches him and there is a contraption that he presses to his face while whispering sweet words.

_Asthma._

What the fuck is _asthma?_

It looks like Target Steve, whatever it is.He has no contraption but he can whisper words.He can do that.He doesn’t know what they mean or what he’s even saying but Dr. Banner is looking at him and after moments Steve is looking at him, too, eyes wild and jumping between realities - _fuck he knows what that’s like -_ and…

They are the same eyes.The same eyes from the dreams. 

He does not understand but he feels like he is doing something right with those eyes on him.So he whispers nonsense pulled up from a well that he did not know was inside him, spills the words on him like baptism, until Steve can hold on to this place and this time and this voice.

 

 

 

“Oh my God,” Darcy whispers.And that about sums it up, because the Winter Soldier is leaning over Steve, talking him down, and he sounds _human_.

“Hey, Steve.Hey, now.Gotta just breathe, right, gotta slow down and breathe.You don’t breathe, we’re gonna miss that Dodgers game, we’ve been waitin’ a month to go to that game, weather’s gonna be real swell, warm and sunny, you can’t leave me hanging, ya mook, I don’t wanna take no dame to that game, they get bored and wanna talk and make me miss everything.Come on, breathe.Shit, if you breathed half as good as you get spittin’ mad you’d get a medal for it.They got medals for being an ornery son of a bitch?You got some objection to breathin’, Stevie?It ain’t never done you no harm.Breathe with me.That’s it, breathe with me.” 

And it’s working.

 

 

 

She is tired.She is so tired.

In part it’s the vodka.She’s had enough to be numb in the face and teeth and is past due to fall into bed and let it pull her into the depths.She will, once she’s confident that these two train wrecks are truly out. 

Bruce, controller of the happy juice, deemed this an appropriate occasion for sedatives.Steve came out of the panic attack but it was painfully clear that he was still petrified of Tony, Thor, and Sam being out there.He was so anxious that he vibrated with it.None of them could stand it and neither could Steve.He was grateful when they put him out.

The Soldier seemed to go catatonic once Steve returned to himself; he didn’t respond to her or anyone else.Whatever mental logjam he was in, it was big enough to override protocol, and that was saying something.Clint and Bruce had to drag him bodily into the bedroom and arrange him on the bed.

They are both asleep now.As she’s checking The Soldier, the edge of a purple notebook catches her eye and she pulls it out from between the bed frame and the mattress.It’s half full, English and Russian and angry lines.Her brow knits as she reads the uncharacteristically coherent words on the last page before they go blank.

 

_One of these mornings_

_You're gonna rise, rise up singing,_

_You're gonna spread your wings, child,_

_And take, take to the sky,_

_Lord, the sky._  

 

Clint’s hand touches her neck and she doesn’t jump because she’s drunk and it feels good, that warm palm.He reads over her shoulder.

“Janis Joplin,” he says.

“What?”

“They’re song lyrics.Damn good song.Do you not know who Janis Joplin is?”

“I know who she _was,_ ” Natasha says pointedly.

“27 Club,” he murmurs, and she thinks to herself _Barnes was 27 when he fell off that train, Steve was almost 27 when he went into the ice_.Clint goes on.“How the fuck does _he_ know Janis Joplin?”

“How the fuck did he suddenly become Bucky Barnes?”

“Nat, he _is_ Bucky Barnes.”

“He’s not.”She can’t keep the irritation out of her voice.Why don’t they get it?She isn’t Natalia.She is Natasha.It’s only a few letters but the difference is tremendous.But, she is forced to admit, she had not had much of an identity when they plucked her from the orphanage.Barnes had lived 27 years as a real person.She can’t say if that’s better or worse.

“I think he just proved you wrong out there.”

“Yeah, and look at him now,” she says, sounding as bleak as she feels.

There is a pause.

“Let’s go,” Clint says gently.“You need to sleep and dry out.Bruce and I can handle the rest of the night’s miserable waiting.”

She huffs a laugh without humor, but gets up and lets Clint settle her into her bed.

 

 

 

It’s easy.Much too easy.Or maybe it’s just overconfidence on Hydra’s part; they think they’ve taken care of the problem, that no one will dare to fight them with the odds stacked so high.Whatever it is, Sam thanks the universe that getting near the helicarrier the second time is much easier than the first.

They don’t actually have to go in this time.Just into the engine housing, where Tony assures them there is a little panel about four inches square that he built in to interface with the main computers and the power supply.If it’s not there they are supposed to abort and regroup.Tony thinks it will still be there; the time necessary to alter the ships, and the fact that it’s impossible to work on the engines without bringing the whole vessel down to the ground, means everything is the same as it was five weeks ago at liftoff. 

That, and they’re operating on the assumption that Tony is dead.He’s given no one reason to believe otherwise.He didn’t leave Stark Tower in the air; he left through the basement, came up out of a side passage he’d carved to meet up with the orange line train tunnel.  He'd call Stark paranoid, but there was that old adage that it didn't mean they weren't after you, ringing true.  If there aren’t tunnels under Clint’s house already, there will be.

So, in theory, all Sam has to do is get into the engine, find that panel, and plug in the thumb drive Tony’s supplied for thirty seconds.They’re radio silent because they don’t want there to be any chance of being noticed.He won’t know if the others are successful until he’s done and they rendezvous.

Stark’s made significant improvements to the wingsuit.He’s given it stealth capabilities like the Iron Man suits; Sam sees nothing as he cruises past the now-repaired glass vestibule he’d crashed through a month ago.There’s less drag on it so he can go faster, and it’s more sensitive to his commands, which is taking a little getting used to.It’s quieter and has more accessory functions.He’s not even worried about those yet; he can practice over the farm without the pressure of a mission to complete.

Sam is in and out in 54 seconds.The night is quiet.Though the helicarriers hover in close formation he can’t see Thor or Tony.He makes for the rendezvous point and hopes.

Tony appears first.He gives a thumbs up, but they stay quiet.At last, after three minutes, eight seconds, Thor arrives, cloaked in mist which abruptly clears as he pulls up next to them.Sam can tell from his face that something isn’t quite right.

“Problems?” Tony asks.

“No,” he replies.“I was successful.”

Try as he might, he can’t get Thor to say anything else, and Tony’s off to the races, talking with JARVIS and preparing to move the helicarriers.From what Sam understands, whatever program they fed into the engine port will take control of the engines and the navigation system.No one but Tony will be able to control where they go.It doesn’t solve the problem completely; they still have the algorithm and shooting people from the sky isn’t the only way to cross names off the list.But it takes away their ability to eliminate so many targets all at once, and it buys the Avengers some time.Time that they desperately need.

“Here we go, kids,” Tony breathes.“Buckle up.”

From their vantage point, they can see the helicarriers begin to move.

_Take that, you Hydra motherfuckers_ , Sam thinks, and pulls out his phone to text Clint.

 

 

 

He’s half-asleep on the couch with a cell phone in one hand and a gun in the other when the drone of the infomercials changes and suddenly he’s wide awake.It’s breaking news.Clint is not ashamed to slide off the couch to his knees and rest his head on the coffee table for _one Mississippi two Mississippi three Mississippi._

The helicarriers have moved.They’re over the Pacific.Open ocean.

If it wasn’t 3:46 am he would go outside and shoot that gun in the air and whoop.

As if on cue, the phone vibrates.It’s a long text from Sam.

_All OK.On our way back.Stark wants to stop and trick Thor into one of those perspective pictures of the Washington Monument as his dick._

Sam’s exasperation is palpable.It’s good to hear that Tony is acting like Tony, which is to say like a twelve-year-old.Means there’s light at the end of the tunnel.Normally Clint would encourage this goal and pay money to see the end result, but plain and simple, they don’t have time for that shit when they’re the most hated people in the world.

_Tell Tony that’s what Photoshop is for and get your asses back._

Literally one minute later his phone vibrates again, and it’s a Photoshopped picture from Tony.

“This is an insane asylum,” Clint says out loud, and climbs back onto the couch to steal anap before they return.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A note on the Janis Joplin song (Summertime): the version Tony and Clint would know is a cover by Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company, but it was originally written by George Gershwin and DuBose Heyward for Porgy & Bess in 1935, and was famously sung by Billie Holiday in 1936. It hit #12 on the pop charts then. It's a song Steve and Bucky would know, which is why it sticks in Bucky's consciousness after Tony puts the Janis Joplin version on the iPod.
> 
> Here are links to both versions.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysow1wXWyvE Billie Holiday version
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guKoNCQFAFk Janis Joplin & Co. version 
> 
> And just for fun, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-_Q8znGMRg Bodies by Smashing Pumpkins. It's really interesting to go back to Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness when you haven't listened to it in years.
> 
> Thanks for sticking with me through this dark tale (which will lighten up eventually, I swear). Do let me know what you think.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A heads up for you wonderful readers: I am getting married in approximately two and a half weeks so updates to both this story and T.F.W.C. will be slow and potentially non-existent until early May. Thanks in advance for your patience!

The Asset stares at the ceiling.He does not remember making it to the bed.He does not remember the blankets being pulled up around him.All he remembers is Steve.

There are two Steves.One that lives locked up somewhere in his mind, like a wisp of a half-remembered dream, bright around the edges, and the one who is here now.Still bright, but more delicate, somehow, than the frail shape threaded into his hippocampus.He does not understand how they can be the same, but they are.His gut knows.His _cells_ know.

It has been so long since he listened to either.So long since he remembered how to pay attention.So long since any of it _mattered_.

Most of yesterday, he thought about what Thor, son of Odin, Crown Prince of Asgard and Protector of the Nine Realms said.He was not from here, but he cast his lot in with this group, this place, anyway.Because they were good people with a worthy cause.

_And because this is where my heart took root._

He does not really know what good or worthy means.But he thinks he knows what the last part means.He can picture a human heart breaking apart like the casing of a seed, root filaments questing out, growing deep and strong and riotous.Watered by…

The things he sees here.The way these people _forgive_.Support.Accept.

Not like the way Hydra grew him, with pain and fear and erasure.There is a part of him, so small and weak, that wants to think he can break through the twisted roots.Maybe grow into something else, like Thor.And then the roots tighten, squeeze his chest until he feels wild with panic, and _he wants to go back to them._ He wants to go back to the place where everything makes sense and all is numb.

It is so confusing that it makes his head hurt.

He wants to stay in the bed until it stops hurting.Until the end of time, if he needs to.But he has a mission.Steve.Steve is not in his bed.His handler says he is allowed to be alone but it has been thirty minutes.That is enough alone time. 

The Asset rolls out of bed.Fights a wave of dizziness that he knows is from not eating.They offer him food every day but he is never sure if he is supposed to take it.If he _wants_ to take it.He wouldn’t have dared in the place he came from.

Sometimes they tell him what to do, but more often they don’t.It’s _exhausting_ , the debate within himself about whether or not it’s a trap, a test, what actions will pass and what will fail.What will result in pain and shame. _Why_ it would result in anything else. 

Why, why, why.It all comes back to why. 

_And_ , that tiny voice inside him whispers, _who._

He stands up, heart pounding, and lurches for the door.The mission. _The mission._

_Steve_.

 

 

 

Steve is scowling at the television as the early news rambles softly through the house.Tony, Thor, Clint, Darcy, and Barnes are asleep.Natasha is nursing a hangover.Bruce is on the couch next to Steve with a cup of coffee and a tablet.Sam hasn’t been able to wind himself down from the mission yet, so he’s making breakfast.

As the toaster pops, the Winter Soldier walks into the living room.He’s wearing plaid pajama bottoms and a green 1999 rec league basketball t-shirt excavated from the depths of Clint’s closet.Underneath the clothes Sam knows his gunshot wounds are completely healed; Bruce checked yesterday morning, after they drifted in from the porch.

“Morning,” Bruce says, as if there is nothing strange in the world.He’s good at that.Barnes blinks at him, and then wedges himself between Bruce and Steve on the couch.He stares straight ahead, face unreadable.

Sam bites down on a smile.Bruce told him what happened last night when they left.Explained that Steve had a hell of a panic attack, and that the wrung out looking man on the couch went full-on Bucky Barnes to talk him down and it _worked_. 

Sure, his mission is to protect Steve, but there’s a certain possessiveness in his need to be plastered to his side.Bruce amiably scoots over to give him more room.Both Bruce and Steve look at him a moment later when his stomach growls.

The Soldier winces as if he’s done something wrong.It’s on the tip of Sam’s tongue to ask him if he wants something to eat.Then he remembers Natasha’s coaching. _Tell him, don’t ask him._

He pulls the bread from the toaster, puts butter on one piece and strawberry jam on the other, and strides into the living room.Sam takes Barnes by the right arm, trying very, very hard to ignore the jump of the muscles beneath his fingers and the fear in his eyes, and presses the plate into his hand.

“Eat,” he says, and lets go. 

He holds onto the plate for three long minutes, eyes flickering back and forth between the toast and Sam.Steve nudges him with his shoulder a moment later.He looks at Steve, and dear Lord above, the difference in his eyes is incredible.He trusts Steve without really understanding why, but he doesn’t fight it.When Steve nods, he picks up the toast and takes a bite.

They all act like it isn’t a milestone and let him eat without fanfare.Sam knows he’s going to have more of a fight on his hands when it comes to Steve.He’s shown no interest in food.He’s consented to a little water now and then, but that’s it. 

Simply put, tube feeding can’t keep up with his metabolism.If he doesn’t eat real food, his body will be forced to feed on its own muscle mass, and then his organs.He’ll get sick, very sick.His heart will fail.And it will happen a lot faster than it does to regular people with lower caloric needs, considering he was already starved for a month before this. 

He probably hasn’t eaten since the morning they marched on the Triskelion.Sam wishes he didn’t know it, but the last tastes in Steve’s mouth were blood and bile and unwanted flesh.He’s traumatized, sensory defensive, depressed, and an aversion to eating is…not normal, but not unheard of, under the circumstances.Time has healed the burns and is slowly mending his brain, surgery has fixed his face, but the wounds to his psyche will take a lot longer, if they ever heal at all.

He needs a therapist.They _all_ need therapists.But the circle of trust is small, Dr. Fine is not a psychiatrist, and Clint wants as few people as possible to know where he lives, or that he has a family.As always, time is not on their side, either.The best they can do is lick the wounds, rub dirt in them, and move on.Shelve the emotions for another time.For some of them, though, that shelf ain’t holding.

Sam glances up in time to catch the Soldier licking strawberry jam from his thumb.Steve sees it, too, and he smiles.It’s the first one since he’s been back and it isn’t the same; his left lower lip doesn’t move all the way into it.Nerve damage, probably.The surgeons said it was possible.Even so, a smile is a smile.So Sam tries.

He makes a smoothie.He knows Steve likes them, saw him accept one as he got into the car with Natasha the day they met, and it will be easy on his sore jaw.He hands it to Steve and hopes.

Steve is as bad as the Soldier.He can only hold the tall cup for long minutes, staring at it like it’s full of razorblades.And then, amazingly, the Soldier - no, Barnes, this is _definitely_ Barnes - nudges Steve with _his_ shoulder and nods.Steve closes his eyes, takes a breath, and sips at the smoothie.For a second Sam thinks it might come right back up - he should have thought of that, had a bowl ready to go - but Steve manages to keep things together.They all look away like they did for Barnes.Like it isn’t a big deal.

Steve manages about half of the smoothie before he hands it to Barnes.Sam can see that every part of the man wants to sniff at it suspiciously but he doesn’t.It would be funny if it wasn't so sad; both men are more invested in making sure the other eats, with no real want or need of food for themselves.It sure isn’t healthy but if it’s the way forward, Sam will take it.

Steve can’t stomach anything more.Sam isn’t sure he’ll be able to keep what he did eat down, but he tried.It’s for Barnes and for Sam, not himself, but it’s all he can ask for at this point.

For a long hour things are quiet.Steve glares at the television; Alexander Pierce and Hydra are taking credit for moving the helicarriers over open water, where they’re not in range of people.Bruce plays some game on his tablet.Barnes pretends not to be interested in whatever game Bruce is playing, until he can’t anymore because he's leaning so close his breath ruffles Bruce’s hair, and Bruce just hands over the tablet.Tells him it’s a mandatory training exercise when he goes pale and tries to hand it back.He’s not nearly as reluctant with the game as he was with the food. 

When he walks by a little later, Sam shakes his head, because of course The Hulk plays Angry Birds - and of course the Winter Soldier masters it in all of five minutes. 

 

 

 

Bruce finds himself in the lab sometime later.It’s too quiet without Tony and his music, but he needs to be in here.Needs to think about the next step.

It isn’t enough to have moved the helicarriers, and it won’t be enough to destroy them, either.The real danger is Zola’s algorithm.Hydra will find another way to cross names off the list.Humans _always_ find a way.Bruce has a terrible feeling that Hydra is more than willing to let regular citizens do its work for them, and after the shock of the first wave of killings, people are angry and scared and that makes them gullible.Susceptible to manipulation.

He’s never met Alexander Pierce but it’s clear that the man is both smart and dangerous.He’s charismatic in a way Johann Schmidt never could be, coming across as a gruff grandfather figure; strong, seasoned, steady in the face of doom.People trust him.People want him to tell them what to do.They want him to lift the burden of choice and critical thinking from their shoulders.In the hands of the right man that kind of power can be wielded for good.In the hands of the wrong man, it is a scythe in a field of pliant wheat, ready to mow down the stems that refuse to bow in its path. 

Bruce chews his lip.He needs more information.It’s impossible to solve an equation with too many variables and not enough constants.

Even if he does figure it out, he’s not sure that it will help.There won’t just be one copy of the algorithm or the people it names.The most they might be able to hope for is to prevent it from identifying new people as the situation evolves.The people already identified, well, they will always be on a list _somewhere_. 

So it’s less of an exercise in stopping the algorithm as it is in forcing the public to understand what’s happening and letting people make up their own minds.Bruce rubs his hands over his face.Denial is often easier than acceptance.He knows that better than most.

He looks up a moment later when the door opens.He expects Tony, but instead it’s Thor who walks in.He slept but doesn’t look any better for it.The last few days have been hard on him, and Bruce wonders if he would be more at ease mourning in Asgard.

Thor is out of place in the lab and doesn’t know where to sit or where to put his hands.Eventually he settles with his back against Tony’s workbench.He crosses his arms and looks at the floor.

“I saw Loki,” he says.Simple.Straightforward.

Bruce frowns.“What do you mean?Where?”

“I mean I saw him.On the mission.On the helicarrier.”

Bruce opens his mouth, then closes it.Loki.So much like Alexander Pierce, but more emotional.More in need of adulation and approval even if he pretends not to be.A god, but a young god who loves and hates in equal measure.There is no love in Pierce, Bruce knows that.

“You said he was imprisoned in Asgard.”

“He is,” Thor replies.“He _was_ , when I left.”

“We know he can cast illusions of himself between worlds.He’s done that before.”

Thor nods.“But he shouldn’t be able to from his cell.”

“Maybe he’s learned.”He doesn’t like the implication of the words any more than Thor.

The blond takes a shuddering breath.“I cannot…I cannot _bear_ to think that he might be involved in this.In Jane’s death.”

“Did he say anything?” Bruce asks.

“No.But he was _there_.”Thor sighs.“Am I…”

_Insane, delusional, breaking down?_ Bruce knows what he’s thinking.It’s not outside the realm of possibility that it could be a manifestation of grief.People saw things when they were torn open by the pain of loss, when they couldn’t sleep.When the world fell down around their ears.Thor isn’t human but he has limits all the same.

“The only way to be sure is to go,” Bruce says.

“There is much to be done.”

“We’ll manage.Thor, go.”

He sighs, runs his hands through his hair.“I am afraid of what I might find.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“No,” Thor says firmly.“You are needed here.” 

“That’s funny,” Bruce murmurs.“I don’t feel like I’m actually doing anything useful at all.”

Thor stands and squeezes his shoulder, looking him in the eyes.“There is a reason I came to you.There is a reason we _all_ come to you.You are mighty on the battlefield as Hulk, but mightier as the man before me.Do not doubt your contribution.”

Bruce blinks at him, swallows hard against the unexpected lump in his throat.He imagines it is a common side effect of a pep talk by a god.

“Tell everyone where I have gone.I hope to be back as soon as possible.”

Bruce nods.“Be safe.”

Thor makes for the door and pauses with his hand on the old glass doorknob.“Watch over them.”

“I will.”

Still, Thor does not leave, and Bruce can see how hard it is for him to convince himself - both that anything good awaits him in Asgard, and that they will be safe here without him.He takes a breath and touches his fingers to the door.He whispers something in a language Bruce has never heard before, and runes glow to life in the wood, spreading in a golden cascade across the walls.

“ _We_ will, my brother,” he says, and finally goes.

 

 

 

Steve is watching Bucky, as near as he can get to being amused right now.The battery on Bruce’s tablet is going to die soon.Bucky is _obsessed_ with Angry Birds.It helps that he’s really, really good at it.

As he watches, a notification pops up.Bucky frowns, then looks at Steve.Steve reads the notification and stifles a smile.It’s Darcy challenging him to a competitive match.He never plays games on his phone much, but he knows Darcy is unfairly good at everything she plays.Tony complains about it often enough.He reaches over with his left hand, squinting with the effort of making it still and coordinated enough to tap the accept icon.

Bucky catches on quickly, but not quick enough to avoid the sting of defeat.His mouth drops open and an irritated noise escapes him.

“How you like me now, sucka?” Darcy gloats as she rounds the corner into the living room.“Oh.I thought I was playing against Bruce.Dude, you should really get your own account, you’re inflating Banner’s scores.I knew he wasn’t that good.”

“My own…account…?”Bucky blinks at her without comprehension.

She sets it up for him, even picks the username because he can’t fathom any part of what she’s doing or asking him.He’s delighted all the same when he understands that it’s _his_ , and his alone.Even if she named him ‘SergeantAngryturds’.Steve has a feeling SergeantAngryturds is going to be the top scorer in a week.

Steve squeezes her hand when she heads for the kitchen, thanking her with his eyes because he can’t with his voice.She leans down to touch her lips to his forehead and then retreats to the kitchen.He listens to the sounds of domesticity as she makes herself breakfast - oatmeal with Nutella and sliced bananas on it.

“Hey, Angryturds,” she says, “you ever have Nutella?”

It’s only his programming that tears his attention away from the game.As for responding to that name, Steve thinks he might actually _like_ the title she’s given him. 

“No, Ma’am,” he replies dutifully.

“Oh, honey,” she croons.Darcy dips a spoon in and makes her way into the living room to hand it to him.“Try some.”

The smell is cloying to Steve and he fights his gag reflex.Darcy looks at him apologetically, but it’s worth it when Bucky tastes the Nutella.His eyes widen and he looks at them both as if it’s so good it should be illegal. _Too_ good for him.They both see the thought cross his face, seep the life from his eyes, and Darcy reaches out.

“You deserve it,” she says.“You’re doing so good.”

And he’s like a flower turning to sunlight.He soaks up the praise, allows himself the vulnerability of letting it mean something in front of them.Darcy holds out the spoon.

“Finish it.If you want. _Only_ if you want.”

She’s good at this - at framing a choice like a command.Like by choosing, he’s still obeying her, but really he’s learning to listen to himself.He reaches for the spoon and finishes the small bit of Nutella.Darcy didn’t put much on there in case he hated it.

Steve wishes he could open his mouth and tell her how amazing she is.She smiles like she knows, and takes her oatmeal back to her bedroom.Bucky goes back to the game, but the tablet starts to chime because the battery is at 10%.Steve peels himself off the couch to go look for the charger.

Bucky looks at him, ready to get up and assist.Steve waves him away.He frowns, but stays where he is, and Steve knows he’s watching as he makes his way out of the living room.His knee buckles once but he catches himself.He grits his teeth.He’ll make it.He has to make it.

It’s embarrassing, but it takes him fifteen minutes and most of his energy to make it to Bruce’s room, find the charger, and make his way back.It takes four tries with his shaking left hand to plug it into the tablet.But goddamn it, he does it.If last night taught him nothing else, it’s that he needs to get better so he can be out there.So he never has to sit home and wonder and pray over the fate of his friends again.

It’s going to be a long road.Just that little walk exhausted him, and the smoothie isn’t sitting well in his stomach.Steve sighs.He is literally sick and tired.He reclaims his spot next to Bucky and promptly falls asleep on his shoulder.

 

 

 

Clint doesn’t want to break the spell.In the living room Steve and Barnes are on the couch.Barnes has his knees up and is resting Bruce’s tablet against his thighs, intently playing a game while Steve naps on his shoulder.It’s so fucking simple and really kind of sweet and he can’t be the one to interrupt.

So he watches them, imagines them in another time and place where everything isn’t so fucked up - imagines the kind of relationship they had, for Steve to be so determined to save him that he gave up entirely on himself.Clint thinks about the people he’d do that for.His wife, his children.Natasha.The rest of the people here, they’re worming their way up. 

It’s a short list defined by one thing: love.

He thinks it’s pretty much the only thing that could have kept any little piece of Bucky Barnes alive in the man on the couch.It’s definitely what made him take Steve away from that Hydra hellhole.And it’s what will pull them both through, eventually, if they live to see that day. 

He hears the _snick, snick, snick_ of Natasha’s crutches as she draws even with him.She doesn’t say anything.She just rests her head on his shoulder, like Steve’s on the Soldier’s, and exists with him.

 

 

 

Dr. Banner did not say how long he needed to play the game for the mandatory training exercise.His eyes are beginning to hurt.The light from the game box is bright and leaves little spots blinking behind his eyelids.He dares to put it down on the couch.It is a good way to work on his targeting, strategy, and problem-solving, but headache and eye strain are not optimal for mission completion. 

Steve remains asleep against his left shoulder, so he stays where he is.His mind is still considering the world of the game - how to inflict maximum damage with minimum resource expenditure, how to choose which weapons to use for that purpose.If it is an exercise in strategy he must expand it to real-world terms.Apply it to the current situation.

Birds and pigs.Avengers and Hydra.

Any way he looks at it, there are not enough birds to topple the pigs, no matter the abilities of the birds.And in this world, the pigs can fire back.The pigs _will_ fire back.And that _worries_ him.

He looks up, and his handler and the one called Clint are standing in the doorway.The redhead is resting against the archer, her head on his shoulder like Steve’s is on his, but she is awake.Watching.

He _knows_ her.But the how, the why, is just out of reach for him.

The Asset opens his mouth.

“Th…they will r-retaliate.”

They.Something outside of _him_.Because he is not them.He is not one of the pigs.He will not go back.He will not leave Steve.He will be a bird with a metal wing.

“I know,” she says softly. 

His chest feels constrained, armored in, like fingernails are scratching at his ribs from the inside.Like something living is interred within, clawing for life.He cannot keep still and it wakes Steve and he blows air out through clenched teeth in frustration.This is what it feels like.This is what it feels like to try to rip up old roots and kill the thing it grew.

“Soldat,” his handler says, but it can’t pull him from the spiral of his mind.From the nightmare in which these people are at the business end of his gun, of _any gun,_ when their wings and feet can’t outrun the reach of the squid’s tentacles.When they drag him back under, put him in the chair, wipe it all away and he can’t hold on, he can’t ever hold on—

He starts when he feels Steve’s hand grip his, skin to metal.The thing inside him has grown teeth and is chewing at his sternum.It hurts.It hurts so badly, more than surgery, more than electricity, more than fists and hunger and degradation.It hurts more than being an it.

The urge to run is so powerful.But Steve is holding onto him, not letting go.

“They will use me,” he gasps out.“They will make _me_ retaliate.”

Steve’s lips form the word _No_ and he can imagine the way his voice would sound if he had one.The person who speaks in his place is not his handler, but rather Clint.

“You don’t belong to them.They can’t make you do anything.”

He doesn’t understand.None of them do, and he can’t force it all out at once.All he can do is grip Steve’s hand, try to drown in his eyes, and plead.

“Be ready. _Be ready._ ”

 

 

 

Tony doesn’t wake until late afternoon.It’s the most he’s slept since it all began.The best quality sleep, too.The kind where your head hits the pillow and you fall into the arms of oblivion.He’s forgotten what it’s like to wake refreshed.Not that he was ever great at that.

Tony runs with the momentum and takes a shower.He hasn’t done enough of that, either.Bruce has prompted him every three days, told him to get out of the lab and not come back until he’s scrubbed clean because hell if he’ll work in the funk.There is no funk, really, but if Bruce let him go he’d get there.He has gotten there, before, at his most depressed.

He is savagely, unrelentingly depressed now, but he has a goal.A purpose.Eviscerate Hydra.

Step one is complete.It will take them weeks, maybe months to override his programming and move those helicarriers.In that time they have to tear the rest of it down.It sounds simple but it isn’t; none of them know how deep the rabbit hole goes, and it isn’t just about undoing people and plans.It’s about exposing the manipulation and the lies, making the public trust them again.Moves and countermoves.In the back of his mind, Tony knows they may not have enough time before those helicarriers are mobile to accomplish everything…and that makes him feel a particular brand of crazy.

He walks into the lab to find Bruce already there, head bent over a computer terminal and a notebook.Tony sits next to him.He’s quiet for five minutes, absorbing what Bruce is working on.

“We’ll never get everyone on board with this,” he says. 

“If it’s our only option, you might be surprised who gets on board,” Bruce replies.“Besides, we’d bluff.”

There’s a beat of silence before Tony says, “We would?”

“Yes.”Bruce says it the way he says most things - with conviction.

Tony is not even the slightest bit interested in bluffing, and Bruce knows it.

 

 

 

He avoids his Mother.He knows he will be unable to look her in the eye without breaking down.So, too, does he avoid his Father, who will look at him with some melded expression, half sympathy, half _I warned you not to meddle in the affairs of mortals._ Thor is not interested in lessons right now.Heimdall is the only one who knows of his return, and in his wisdom he knows that solemn silence is the best comfort for now.

It isn’t long before he finds himself standing before Loki’s cell - luxurious by Asgardian standards - and staring in.He does not know what he’s going to say.What he’ll do if his fears are confirmed.No world looks kindly on fratricide.

Loki is there, of course.He makes a show of not noticing Thor, but he’s learned to read his brother now, sees the awareness in the tight curve of his shoulders.After several minutes Loki puts down his book.

“Brother,” he says.“To what do I owe the pleasure?”Sarcasm curls through his words, but it is half-hearted. 

“I should ask the same.”

The debate within him is a short one.Loki unwinds his lithe muscles and leans forward.

“It worked, then.”

“As if you did not know.You were staring right at me.”

“Was I?I’m afraid I couldn’t perceive much.”He flicks a lazy hand at the energy barrier between them.“This dampens things.Though I imagine the more I project myself, the clearer it will become.”

Thor steps close, feels the tingle of the energy against the fine hair on his arms.

“Tell me this, brother.Look me in the face in this moment and tell me, truthfully, if you were involved in the events in Midgard.”

“I tell you truthfully, Thor, that I had no part in it.I heard rumors.I tried to project myself to you to discover if those rumors were true or not.That is all.I swear it.”At Thor’s stony look, he stands and walks to the front of the cell, so they are only inches apart.“I swear it on our Mother.”

Frigga is the one person Loki cares for more than himself.A promise on their Mother is the only one Thor would believe.Loki knows that, but Thor doesn’t think he would use it to manipulate him.A few things are still sacred between them.

“It is true, then,” Loki says. 

Thor can’t give it voice.He sits heavily on the ledge in front of the energy shield.On the other side, Loki eases down, crossing his legs at the ankles.

“You should be more careful,” Thor says at last, voice weak.“I was in the middle of a very dangerous, very important mission when you appeared.”

Loki tilts his head.“You aren’t going to scold me?”

“Would it change your behavior?”Thor snorts and answers his own question before Loki has the chance.“No.” 

“I am _bored_.Bored to tears,” he admits.“I must do something or I will go mad.”

“What is wrong with your books?”

Loki rolls his eyes.“Tell me about Midgard.”

“I will not have it be _entertainment_ to you,” Thor says sharply.“I know of your appetite for chaos, even that not of your own making.”

“Tragedy has loosed your tongue and your temper,” Loki observes.

“Not everyone speaks in riddles, brother.”A thought moves through his mind, then, something he would not consider but for the circumstances.“You require stimulation?Then teach me.”

“Teach you what?”

“Illusion.Deception.Stealth.”

And Thor has the supreme satisfaction of Loki looking _surprised_ , before he can school his expression into insouciance. 

“Surely Mother can teach you illusion.She taught me, after all.”

“I am not asking her, I’m asking you.”

And he has shocked him, because Loki is quiet for long minutes, eyes narrowed in calculation.

“Why?” he asks, slow and suspicious.

“These foes did not defeat the heroes of Midgard with force or weapons or numbers.They outsmarted them.Manipulated the citizens and the situation, the heroes themselves.To defeat them we must do the same.I am…unused to such tactics, but I know you employ them with ease.”

“Somehow you made that not sound like an insult,” Loki says, lips twitching with paradoxical mirth.

“A talent for trickery is still a talent,” Thor replies.“One I have need of.”

“Then let me out of here.I will stand beside you.I long for the exercise of a clever foe.” 

Thor feels his lips pull with the same humor, old as time between them.“Somehow _you_ made _that_ not sound like an insult.”

“Oh, it was.”But he’s grinning, now.

Thor ignores his plea for freedom; Loki is not fool enough to believe Thor would release him and Thor is not fool enough to consider it, though he knows Loki’s might, when channeled the right way, could be very helpful.The thing with Loki is that while he sometimes means well, he can’t help himself.He exists to scheme.

“What say you, brother?” Thor asks.“Shall I leave you to your books?” 

The trade-off is clear, if not written in words.It is at least written in blood.Loki teaches him a few new tricks, and Thor keeps him from dying of boredom.He knows it will not be enough for Loki in the long run, that he will demand more or try something or take more from Thor than intended…but it is a double exposure.Thor will be vulnerable to his brother’s whims, but Loki will be forced to give him a glimpse of how he thinks, of what weapons sit gathering dust in his arsenal.Like fire and water, they will meet somewhere in the middle and cancel each other out.

“First lesson,” Loki says.“You must not wear your every thought and feeling on your face.”

“Then where must I wear them?” he asks.He will not make this easy for Loki.

His pale eyes are bright when he responds.“Behind your heart of ice.But I do not think I can ever teach you that.”

“You had best teach me something, if I am to keep Mother from divining my purpose here.”

There is something like sadness in Loki’s demeanor as he contemplates his brother.Maybe he has at last realized how much Thor has lost, to want this.And that there may yet be space for someone beyond himself and Frigga in that frozen heartspace.

“The desire to deceive is the first step,” he says.“Without it, you are just another victim of the fates.”

 

 

 

Heimdall’s eyes are always on him, but it is rare that he feels the gaze.Thor feels its full force as he returns to the Bifrost.He tries not to quail before it.

“Be careful,” is all the other man says, with undying patience, before activating the portal and sending him back to Midgard.

 

 

 

The scene he returns to is both chaotic and perplexing.Night has fallen in Midgard.He is put down in the fields that stretch past Clint’s home and he expects to be alone, but he isn’t.Tony is there, half suited up, and James is on the ground, hands clamped over his ears.He is speaking the language Natasha sometimes speaks and he looks like he’s in pain.

“JARVIS,” Tony says, a tremor of adrenaline in his voice, “translate, Russian to English.”

“Comply,” the AI’s cool voice reports.“Kill.”

 

 

 

It is as normal an evening as can be hoped for in their strange little safehouse.Natasha’s hangover has finally relented, Bruce and Darcy are cooking dinner, and some part of Steve seems to have come back to life.He’s moving, making a concentrated effort to use his left side.She imagines the last time he had to sit out while others fought for him was probably way back before the serum, when Barnes went to war and he stayed home.They all knew how that went.There is no science experiment to fix him now, but she can see in the tiny beads of sweat at his temples that he is damn well going to try to fix himself.

They’re sitting down to eat, Clint just home from visiting Laura and the kids but happy to nibble at a second dinner, when it happens.His phone goes off, making that awful sound it does when there’s a severe weather warning or an Amber Alert.Everyone jumps.They’re going to have to peel Barnes off the ceiling, but before anyone has a chance to do anything, all the other phones start going off, too.It’s a horrible cacophony. 

Clint gets up to check the weather; it’s not outside the realm of possibility that there is a tornado warning here, but the skies were clear ten minutes before.Natasha doesn’t think anything of the noise until words start to spill forth from the phones in perfect unison.Russian words. 

Barnes drops to his knees, pale as porcelain.

“No, _no_ , _niet,_ I told you, _I told you!”_

The desperation in his tone is chilling.He looks like each word is a lash from a whip.He covers his ears but it can’t drown out the sheer volume of the combined onslaught.

Beside her, Tony is on his feet.

“Turn off the phones,” he says, and she can see that he’s a step ahead of her, urgency putting steel in his spine and voice.“ _Turn them off!”_

Nobody is fast enough.They’re fumbling, not quite understanding, and Barnes is paralyzed, suffering, unable to remove himself.In a blur Tony collects him, fires up his rockets because he’s never not suited up now, and careens out the front door with a crash.

“Jesus Christ,” Clint says once all the phones are finally turned off.He pokes mournfully at what’s left of his screen door.“What the hell was that?”

“I don’t know,” Natasha replies, mind racing.

Steve touches her elbow then, and hands her the notepad he’s been toting around.On it he’s written three letters: _RTB_.She doesn’t know what it means, but Sam is on her other side and he nods.

“Return to base,” he says with a sigh.“Hydra is calling for him.”

“Through the national emergency broadcast system,” Clint says, voice flat.

“Yeah,” Sam says, equally flat.That’s the kind of power they have now; it’s terrifying.“And I’m willing to bet it’s a call he can’t ignore.”

She glances at Steve, sees the pain and fire mingling in his eyes.He leaves the notepad with her and steps out through the Iron Man shaped hole in the screen.They wince as he almost trips on the porch steps, but he catches himself with the railing and pushes on.Sam goes after him a moment later and he’s careful to let him make his own way out into the fields, close enough to help, but far enough to acknowledge that Steve might not need it.

 

 

 

They’re half a mile from Clint’s house, still on his property but far enough that no one can possibly hear the grating Russian pumping from the phones.He’s deposited Barnes on his back in the dry remains of a cornfield.The man is breathing hard, hands still over his ears, but Tony knows he can hear him.“Those words,” Tony demands, hands bunched in the front of his green t-shirt.“What are they?”

It _was_ a series of words, because they didn't flow together like a sentence.They were stated with clipped finality, a second’s pause between each, and they’d made it through eight of them before Tony knew with absolute certainty that he had to get Barnes out of there.

“Th-they make me _do_ things,” he confesses, refusing to open his eyes.Tony can feel him trembling beneath his forearms.“I can’t stop it.”

He swallows.“What kind of things?”

Barnes answers, but it’s in Russian.

“JARVIS, translate, Russian to English,” Tony says. 

“Comply,” JARVIS reports.“Kill.”

Tony looks up and Thor is there, eyes wide.Bruce said he went to Asgard to attend to some business but apparently he's back.

“Thor, I need you to do something.”

The blond nods.His eyes track over Barnes and something protective flickers there.They’re all starting to feel it.They’re all starting to _care,_ and not just for Steve’s sake.

“Go up to the house.Tell them to turn off everything that can connect to any kind of network.We have to get off the grid, _completely_ off the grid.Send Mjolnir out to us when it’s done.” 

Thor repeats it back to him once to make sure he has it right, and then he goes.Tony watches Barnes in the minutes that tick by.Slowly his breathing calms and his hands move from the sides of his head to rest, curled, over his chest.Tony sits next to him, worrying dried corn silk between his fingers and turning the situation over in his head.

“Thank you.”His voice is so quiet that Tony almost thinks he’s hallucinating.

“Buy me a drink someday,” he murmurs. 

Just then, flattened corn stalks crunch underfoot and Steve and Sam are upon them.Barnes sits up.It’s pretty incredible to watch the way he and Steve interact; they don’t need words.Entire conversations happen in glances and body language.Barnes helps Steve down onto the ground, where he sits so they’re facing each other, the outside of their left knees touching.

Sam has a strange look on his face, and abruptly he walks away.

 

 

 

It’s happening and he can’t stop it.And of all the things…all the fucking things to tip him over the edge, it’s this.

Sam leans over, tries to exert some kind of control over the emotion.There’s none to be had.He knows what it’s like to _know_ a person the way Steve and Barnes know each other.He could have been looking at himself and Riley.

The tears aren’t about that - not most of them, anyway.They’re about all the death, watching his friends get battered by lives they didn’t necessarily choose, feeling like an ant trapped under glass.They’re about the panicked feeling that lives perpetually in his chest and the voice in the back of his mind that tells him he’s not doing enough, that there are dozens of people who should be alive instead of him.

There’s a part of him that just wants to be alone in the grief, but a greater part is glad when he hears Steve’s uneven footsteps draw near.It’s always the danger of being a nurturer, a carer, a listener, that when one day you need the things you usually give to others, no one is there.There’s a special kind of sting for that. 

Not today.He folds into Steve and Steve folds into him, and it occurs to Sam that they have never _touched_ before.Sure, teamwork breeds touch during fights and moments of camaraderie, but Steve isn’t someone who looks for or bestows casual contact.At least he wasn’t before his brain got slammed up against in the inside of his skull one too many times.Sam knows better than most how blunt force trauma can change personalities, lower or erase inhibitions.This Steve touches him without hesitation, aligning them forehead to forehead, pressing lips to temple.He touches like he can draw the pain out of him via osmosis.He realizes with a jolt that Barnes isn’t the only one who has gone a long, long time without gentleness in his life.

Sam’s had plenty of reason to question the way his life seemed to veer off course the minute he met Steve, but he also knows that he wasn’t really living before that morning on the Mall.And whatever side of the shield he’s on, the world around them would still be the same.Now he’s here with people who can do something about it.They might die trying, but the point is that they’re trying.

He sits there with Steve until he’s empty, feeling just the same as he sometimes does after a stomach virus.It’s misery, misery, but you try so hard not to give in…but when you finally do, or you can’t stop it any longer, it feels so much better to let it out.Sometimes it’s over, sometimes it comes back a few hours later and lingers, but you always, always feel better, at least for a little while.

They sit so long that Thor follows Mjolnir out of the house to make sure they’re all right.He finds all four of them still in the cornfield, silent, lost in their own thoughts.The Asgardian stands for a moment before flicking his wrist and sending Mjolnir back to the house to let the others know they’re okay.Then he takes his own spot on the ground and clears his throat.

“These stars…do they have names?” he asks.

Sam waits for Tony, easily the most learned one there, to speak…but he doesn’t.Then Sam remembers that Stark flew a nuclear missile into a space portal not so long ago, expecting to die among the stars.Maybe they aren’t his favorite thing.Maybe he’s stopped looking up.

“Yes.”It’s Barnes who says it.

“I wish to learn them.I wish to know the stars that so enraptured Jane.”

There’s a beat of silence.Then Barnes speaks again.“If you lay back your neck won't cramp.”His voice is flat, guarded, but without ill will.Sam glances at Steve.There’s a look on his face, an expression that’s both sad and fond.Steve left his notepad at the house but he didn’t forget the pen.He writes on the palm of his hand.

_He used to stargaze on the fire escape._

And he remembers, because he starts to talk, pointing out Polaris first and explaining its significance.Then Ursa Major and Minor.Cassiopeia, Cepheus, Andromeda, Perseus.That's when Tony talks, because he knows the mythology, and Thor listens, rapt.

They stay out until Orion starts to creep above the horizon and the cold steals into their bones.When he realizes Steve’s teeth are chattering, Barnes is Done with a capital D.The walk back is laborious for Steve; his cold muscles are stiff, but he turns down Tony’s offer to fly him with a curt shake of his head three times.By the time they make it to the house he’s worked out the kinks and he’s sweating again. 

Thor stays out, wrapped in a fur cloak on his back in the cornfield, awaiting the rise of Sirius.

 

 

Bruce listens to Clint and Natasha as they bicker.With everything disconnected they’ve had to resort to non-electronic entertainment and Natasha isn’t pleased with Clint’s collection of board games.

“Why is everything for kids?” she demands.

“Oh, I don’t know, because I have two kids?” he replies.“And Monopoly is not a kids game, have you ever seen a little kid sit at that board for more than five minutes?”

“I’ve seen your daughter try to eat the thimble.”

“And you’re proving my point.”

She sighs, petulant in a way she would only show in front of him. _Them_. 

“Don’t you at least have a chess board?”

“Chinese Checkers is the best you’re gonna get in this house.”Clint suppresses a smirk.She crutches away in irritation, muttering under her breath in Russian.

It’s funny, Bruce thinks, what you learn in a blackout.Natasha Romanov really, really doesn't like being disconnected.He would’ve thought it would be Tony in technology withdrawal, but Tony doesn’t seem bothered at all.

Then again, he’s still got JARVIS.He’s set the AI up as the gatekeeper.JARVIS is monitoring everything, and if they need to, they can still make calls and send and receive messages through him.Clint promised to dig in the basement for an old VCR and Darcy’s going to accompany him to the Goodwill tomorrow to pick up some movies.Maybe that way they stand a chance of Natasha not killing them all.

 

 

Steve is exhausted.He drags himself to the shower anyway.The Asset thinks about following but does not; he feels strange after talking for so long outside.Itchy.Exposed.Knowledge of the stars is not outside his scope, because one must know how to navigate by the stars if a mission goes awry, but he has never taught another person before.And the very act of sitting still and looking - listening to Mr. Stark give the stories behind the names - is an idleness he has not experienced in a very long time.It feels wrong…though he thinks that he enjoyed it.Which _also_ feels wrong.He is not supposed to enjoy anything. 

His mind has been in overdrive since he heard Steve’s teeth clacking together outside.Bits and pieces of memory careen though his head like a swarm of carrion flies.Small Steve, shivering with a chill, his skin the same color as the off-white sheet beneath him.Laying under the stars with Big Steve in a muddy trench full of corpses, pretending to be dead.A woman in a red dress.A ballerina.Small Steve laughing, sand and blistering heat and the smell of seaweed.That last one he holds on to, and if he thinks on it he can see the haze of a long shoreline on a humid summer day, taste the salt on his lips.

Steve isn’t gone for long.He’s so fatigued that he can barely keep his eyes open, and his coordination suffers to the point that he has trouble getting dressed.After the third failed attempt he sighs and looks up.The look on his face and in his eyes is so frustrated and  _so familiar._

The Asset is there before the sigh ends.He helps Steve with his shorts - he only needs his feet threaded, he can do the rest himself - and then the t-shirt.It’s when it goes over his head that the Asset notices the writing on the palm of his left hand.He turns Steve’s hand toward the ceiling.The ink is faded and part of it has been washed away completely, but he can still read what remains.

Steve catches on and tries to pull his hand away.The Asset holds him there.

_He used to stargaze_

He looks up after a long moment.His stomach twists when he realizes it is as easy to stargaze in Steve’s eyes as it is to lay under the sky.The Asset lets go and backs away.His thoughts are not safe.Not for him, and especially not for Steve.They roll and they rile, until they congeal around one thing.

_Who is ‘he’?_

Steve has long since slid under his covers.His breathing is even.Quiet, now that his nose is fixed.He will not wake him for the answer.

His feet carry him to the living room.Mr. Stark is on night watch.He is reading a book and eating what looks like red licorice. 

“If it isn’t the star atlas,” he says, not looking up.

The Asset _likes_ Mr. Stark, in spite of their first meeting.Mr. Stark does not treat him like he’s made of glass knives.He gives him the music with the words that shred him.Lets him be shredded.The others, they are afraid.Even Steve.

Mr. Stark holds out a piece of the licorice.The Asset takes it.It is good.Not as good as Nutella, but he would eat more of it.

“As bad as Clint’s board game selection is, he actually has a pretty good library.”He praises the books, yet he closes the one he holds and sets it down on the arm of the couch.“What can I do for you, tin man?”

The words _Dorothy_ and _Kansas_ and _scarecrow_ flash through his mind and he doesn’t know why.It throws him for a moment, and he almost turns away.But one of his handlers has asked him a direct question, and it’s unwise not to answer.He forces it out.

“Who…who was I…before?”His voice dwindles to nothing by the end of the query.

Mr. Stark says nothing in words, but his face says much.He understands right away.

“She…she does not want me to know?” the Asset asks.If his primary handler does not wish it he must accept her will.

“No,” the other man acknowledges, “she doesn’t, because she wants to protect you.I don’t know if there is such a thing anymore, to be honest.I would tell you, but it’s…” he trails off, fingers tapping an agitated pattern on the upholstery.“It’s something you should hear from Steve, when he gets his voice back.” 

He is floored by the other man’s assertion that his handler wishes to protect him.That is not how it works.He protects his handler.And Steve.But the more he observes these people, the more he sees that they act as handlers to each other.Not to enforce their will, but to comfort.To guide.To complement.He sits, his head even fuller than it was when he left the bedroom.

“Will he?” the Asset asks.“Get his voice back?”

“You are, aren’t you?” Stark asks, a faint smile plucking at his lips.“He will, too.”He nudges the bag of licorice toward the Asset.“And once he starts talking again I’m sure he’ll never stop, so let’s enjoy the peace and quiet while we can, huh?” 

It’s a strange thing to say, when there is no peace and neither man wants Steve to be quiet.But it feels _right_ , like Stark knows Steve well enough to point out flaws with affection.The Asset realizes that Stark’s double-talk covers up a depth of emotion.A depth that he’s afraid to plumb.They are comrades in that.

He reaches out and takes another piece of red licorice, and then he goes back to Steve.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! Everything went great with that wedding thing. I appreciate everyone's patience while I was away. Here's a nice meaty chapter for you all. It's a long one and takes place over a period of about two weeks, and there's some cameo action. Let me know what you think. :)

Steve _is_ getting better.It’s the only way he could have snuck up on her.Well, the vodka probably doesn't help her case, but it's been a long time since sleep came so easily.Steve’s in the wood and wicker chair in the corner of her bedroom and he has a notebook ready.Natasha sighs and takes it.

_What mission did you give him?_ is written at the top of the page.

She takes a breath.She wants to lie to him, and if he was less battered she might.The trouble is, the truth will batter him, too.

“His mission is to help and protect you.”

And his face goes _blank_ in a way that she knows, a way she’s seen before.She just never realized what it meant back in simpler times.It means that he hurts so bad he can’t pretend.And Steve Rogers has a hell of a talent for pretending.

“Steve—”

But he’s already out of the room.

 

 

He is so angry that he thinks he’s dangerous.It’s a feral anger edged in crushing sadness.It tightens in his chest, hollows out his already-empty belly, makes his hands tremble.

Steve is _stupid_.So stupid for believing that the man in the other twin bed is anyone he knows, mentally.How could he be after what Hydra has done to him?How can Steve ask that of him?

The way Bucky _looked_ at him last night, after reading what was written on his palm, and then backed off with fear etched on every inch of him…

He was too tired, then, to think much of it.But this morning, when he woke with the sun, his brain immediately picked up where it left off.With the realization that no matter how much he wants it, this person isn’t his Bucky, and he does not know or understand their relationship.That gets him thinking about why he is being so helpful, so comforting, and he remembers the question he repeated over and over in the Hydra cell.

_What is my mission?_

That’s all he is to Bucky.Not Steve.A mission, still.

As bad as that hurts, it isn’t his fault.It’s wrong to expect him to remember.Wrong to treat him like Bucky instead of who he is now, even if none of them, _him included_ , knows what that is.He’s been through enough.He needs his own space and time for recovery without the burden of caring for Steve.

He's angry at Natasha.Angry at himself.Angry that he cannot control the anger or any other emotion that rolls around in his newly addled brain.So angry.

He thinks about what Bucky said about tears borne of different emotions being unique under a microscope.He can’t remember if he’s ever cried out of anger before, or is this frustration?Guilt?Regret?All of the above?He doesn't know. 

He seeks out the solitude of the barn.Clint only has chickens, so the barn gets no use beyond storage, and he finds a place to sink down among the clutter.It feels like it did during the war, on the occasions when he needed twenty minutes to himself to let down the facade.Steve always tried to stay strong and even in front of the others because they looked to him for that assurance.But there were times when, for his own mental health, he had to let the emotions in.More often than not, an old empty barn was the place he could go to be anything but super. 

It smells musty, undercut with faint hints of motor oil and livestock and blood that his nose never could have picked out before the serum.It pulls hard at the threads of memory.He can maybe pretend this is just another slice of downtime in a grueling campaign.Steve bites his bottom lip and he can’t feel the left side of it, but his gums and jaw ache where they did the dental work, and there is nothing worse than an ache in the teeth except perhaps an ache in the heart. He’s got it all right now.

He must fall asleep, cheek against his knees, because the next thing he registers is Clint’s hand firm on his shoulder shaking him awake.He knows from the voice that it’s Clint but his body has a hard time differentiating friend from foe in this in-between state; he comes to with a violent intake of breath and the urge to lash out taut in his muscles.Clint flinches, less because he anticipates a blow than because he realizes what he’s done.

“I’m sorry.I didn’t…I’m sorry,” he says, pulling his hand back slowly.“I was calling your name but you weren’t waking up.”

Steve keeps his forehead pressed to his knees as he tries to control his breathing.He isn’t angry anymore.Just spooked.His blood pounds in his ears and Clint waits him out.

“Nat got worried,” he says.When Steve finally looks up he’s sitting on an old milk crate, baiting a black barn cat with a piece of string.“I knew you were around but she couldn’t sit still until I came out to look for you.”

The black cat rolls on its back and bats at the string with its paws.Steve imagines that he is the string and Hydra the cat, gouging with claws and teeth but really only playing.It bringsa hard lump back into his throat.

After a while Clint surrenders the string to the cat and contemplates him.Then he says, with a lightness that is somehow unforced, “Want to dig some potatoes with me?Gotta get ‘em out before the ground freezes.”

Steve nods, relieved to have the opportunity to be useful.Clint holds out a hand to help him up and he takes it.Another bit of memory curdles in his chest.Half the time it was Bucky who came into those barns in France or Austria or wherever to get him, but the other half of the time it was Dugan.He’d come in with his chewed-down cigar and bowler hat, ignoring Steve’s blotchy face, and pull him to his feet.Pat him on both arms at the same time like he was fluffing a pillow.Then take hold of the back of his neck and tell him to get his shit together by the time they hit the door. 

He thinks Clint pressing a trowel into his hand is the same as Dugan’s pillow-fluffing.The hand between his shoulder blades is too low but has the same strength.So he does the same as he always did then - he stuffs the ten pounds of emotion into the five pound bag, clamps it shut, and remembers purpose.

Get stronger.

Get better. 

_Win_. 

And today that starts with potatoes.

 

 

 

Steve has done this before.It’s slower than it might have been because he uses his left hand and has to concentrate when he cuts the vines so it’s all stem and no fingers.But he knows what he’s doing.

Why wouldn’t he?He’d bet Steve’s off-the-boat Irish mother had a victory garden in some form.Everyone did, back then, and before pesticides potatoes could regenerate themselves endlessly and entirely without cost, year after year, barring catastrophic blight or weather disasters.

“Your mom grow potatoes?” he asks, wiping a trail of sweat from his forehead.The midafternoon sun still has some warmth.

Steve nods.He looks like he wants to say something but sighs when his voice still refuses to issue.He left his notebook with Natasha earlier that morning.Steve sets his fingers back to the earth and roots up an absolutely enormous tuber.

Clint sits back on his heels and thinks.He hasn’t allowed it to breach his mind until now.What if Steve is never able to talk again?What if this is permanent?

Natasha would scoff at it, say he was being melodramatic.Because she has bounced back from some of the worst things imaginable, she believes that _everyone_ is capable of the same; Clint knows otherwise.He didn’t think Steve was the type - still doesn’t - but he’s in there, and they need him sooner than later.He’s smart and tactical and the moral compass of a group that often strays in every direction.

“Steve,” he says, and catches his eyes when he looks up.“Maybe you could learn sign language.Just as a stopgap.It would help with your coordination, too.”

To his utter shock, Steve replies with his hands.The left one lags a bit, lacks finesse, but it’s pretty damn clear what he’s saying.

_I know how to sign._

It isn’t exactly the same as Clint knows, but it wouldn’t be if he learned it so long ago, and it’s close enough that Clint understands.

“Me too, man,” he says with a smile, signing at the same time.“My brother is deaf.”

_So was I, right ear, after scarlet fever_ , Steve signs. _I was sick all the time and my mother figured I’d lose the rest of my hearing eventually.She learned to sign, then taught me._

_“_ Well holy shit,” Clint says, hands flying.“Why didn’t you—”

_Say something?_ Steve signs, with a look.

Clint laughs. _Message received.I’m an asshole_.

Steve shakes his head.Then he goes back to potato digging.Just like that, he’s clammed up again.Clint blows a breath out between his lips.

He lets it go for a while.It’s meditative, pulling sustenance from the earth.The purchase of the farm had been very intentional.He actually likes growing things, and so does Laura.There’s a sense of permanence to garden and field - something he never had in his youth.

“I forget sometimes,” he says, over the scratch of tools and fingers against the dark soil, “that you had this whole other life before you were Captain America.That you didn’t just spring out of a pile of war bonds that Uncle Sam jerked off on.”

Steve’s hand almost slips as he cuts a vine.He puts the shears down and gives Clint another look.

_You sound like T-O-N-Y,_ he signs _._ Offhand, Clint wonders if there is a sign for Iron Man in ASL - if there’s a sign for each of them. 

“We’re way behind on our inappropriate statement quota for the month.Just trying to do my part.”

Steve shrugs, allows it.

“It just blows my mind, is all,” Clint goes on.“Does it ever…do you ever…miss him?The guy you were before?”

The reply is instantaneous. _Yes_.But he doesn’t elaborate.He’s guarded even in this.

“I miss being a kid in the circus sometimes,” Clint says.“Though I don’t really know that much has changed.Just gotten more serious, maybe, than shooting arrows through apples on a tiger’s head with your feet.”

That earns a ghost of a smile from Steve.A moment later he eases down from a kneel into sitting.

_I’m sorry_ , he signs. _It’s not you.I am having a hard time controlling my emotions.If I start…_ He pantomimes an explosion.

“I get it.”

There’s a pause, and then Steve signs: _Please don’t tell the others._

He sighs and quiets his voice. _I won’t, but you need to let it out.Doesn’t matter what it is.You can’t hold it inside.We’ve all been through hard times, Steve, and not one of us made it out alone._ Clint looks at the dirt beneath his fingernails, and then he tells the truth because Steve needs that. _I wouldn’t be here if not for Laura and Natasha.After New York I fell apart.If I had pushed them away…_

Steve’s eyes are wide, concerned.Clint understands.He’s always been good at hiding behind a veil of aloofness if you didn’t know him, and humor if you did.Most people don't know that he’s seen some shit; lived some, too, long before ever falling in with Fury and SHIELD.Through all of it Clint at least had the luxury of making his own decisions, even if they were sometimes the wrong ones.He had no idea how devastating it was to have that taken away.To be used like a plaything.To watch your talents be applied, cold and ruthless, to actions you would never, ever choose in your right mind.An icy finger of unease runs down his spine even now.

_Is that why,_ Steve signs, and then holds his hands up, open, fingers extended, thumbs touching either temple.Antlers.Deer.No…. _Buck_. 

Clint nods.Yes, that’s why.He knows.He _knows_.But also, it’s clear that he means so much to Steve - too much - and those people who mean too much, it hurts the most to lose them.He’s very aware of what he would do for his family and for Natasha.He can’t begin to imagine what Steve endured just to see Barnes continue to draw breath.To accept the confused and quite frankly _dangerous_ assassin is the least they can do to show Steve that it mattered - that it counted for something.

And if Clint is honest, they’re _all_ dangerous.Not particularly well-adjusted, on top of that.Collectively they are the demented brainchild of Nicholas Fury.It shouldn’t work.Hell, sometimes it _doesn’t_ work.They all have their demons.Bruce love-hates himself and being there at all.Tony is one day going to go too far in that lab of his and they all know it, Tony included _._ Steve is stubborn as fuck and has no regard for his own safety or what it does to others to watch him get hurt.Clint and Natasha still think and act and lie like assassins which pisses their teammates off on the regular.Thor, he’s too good for the bunch of them but is clearly mentally deficient because he hangs out with them anyway. 

Now Sam and Darcy are pulled in, too.He still can’t claim to know Sam well but he fits right in; he’s got baggage and a heart that’s a mile wide, left open for pummeling.Clint has nothing bad to say about Darcy except maybe she’s a little too used to it all - maybe she would have been safer hiding out with her friends in So Cal instead of here, where she’s liable to be caught up in any attempt to end them.

It shouldn’t work, all those personalities and character flaws under one roof, but somehow they are everything to each other.They just didn’t realize it until now.Like pieces of a particularly difficult puzzle that takes forever to complete, they fit, and Clint suspects that part of the problem all along was that Steve’s puzzle piece was never intact.Barnes is the missing bit that hooks into Steve and completes the picture.

He looks up and Steve is fighting tears and losing.It’s kind of funny because he looks annoyed as hell as they slide down his face.He really can’t control it. 

_I just want to stop feeling_ , he signs, then wipes his nose with his sleeve, leaving a streak of dirt on his cheek.

“Do you really?” Clint asks softly.Steve went almost seventy years without feeling a goddamn thing.Is nothingness really respite?

There is so much in his eyes.Clint can read a lot of it - _I wish this never happened, I wish I had really died, I wish I wish I wish -_ but he also sees the awareness of the futility of wishing.He’s familiar with that.

Steve shifts forward onto his shins and goes back to digging potatoes.

 

 

 

She and Barnes are clearly of the same mind today.She’s been jumpy and out of sorts and crawling with guilt whose source she can’t identify.She can’t sit still, can’t focus.All she can think about is that look on Steve’s face, and wanting to blow out the brains of everyone who had a hand in putting it there.Natasha is keenly aware that she is part of that group.

Barnes feels her unease and echoes it.Steve has been absent all morning.He doesn't like when Steve is out of his sight.She forbade him to go looking - Clint’s on it, she can see them in the distance from the window, digging in the earth a ways off from the house.Barnes would only set Steve off right now.She’s pretty sure, based on this morning, that Steve thinks Barnes is only helping him because of the mission.And that cuts him to the quick, scrapes him out like cooked marrow from a bone.If she knows him, though, he’s also directing those knives of pain inward, blaming himself for something.For _everything_.

“Soldat,” she says.

He turns, blue eyes jumping across the angles of her face but never meeting her eyes.It’s brave and it’s progress, considering the first day here he could barely bring himself to look at the spot to the right of her ear.

“I am going to ask you a question, and I order you to answer it honestly.There will be no consequence, no matter what you say.” 

The line of his shoulders is tight.He doesn’t believe her, but she’s still going to ask.

“Is that understood, Soldat?”

“Yes.”

“Steve.Are you helping him because it is your mission, or because you want to?”

There is a long, long pause.Natasha doesn’t touch it.Lets it stretch.He’s not thinking - he knows the answer.He’s debating whether or not to say it.

Finally, he whispers, “Both.”

 

 

 

Steve sleeps in Bruce’s room that night, while Bruce is on watch.Barnes’s lips thin and tremble but he accepts it.Natasha knows he doesn’t sleep.The separation makes him edgy and haunted in a way it never did for her.She preferred to be alone, after.

Because that was all there was for her.After.She does not remember a time before the Red Room.In some ways that’s better; there’s nothing to miss, nothing to mourn or compare.But in some ways it’s worse; even now, she’s still learning how to be a person, an independent commodity…a woman who moves to her own whims.A woman who _has_ whims.

She knows how to _act_ like that person.Only recently has she really _been_ that person.She imagines it would have be helpful to have someone familiar there, someone who knew her and who understood the patterns of her mind like Steve does for Barnes.An anchor.It’s still like being adrift, but with something to hold onto that can pull you up for air when you need it most. 

Clint became that anchor for her.Nick, too.No value can be placed on that.

Right now, with Steve’s retreat, Barnes is at the mercy of the tides, and he can only tread water for so long.She can’t imagine Steve is any better off.He was lost without Barnes to begin with, but she didn’t understand that because she never knew him any other way.Now he’s lost _with_ Barnes, sick with everything they’ve both survived.Crippled by the price of their reunion. 

She knows that paralysis, that helpless rage.It’s the feeling of something being taken and discovering the theft much too late to do anything about it.Equal parts numb resignation and boundless, boiling fury.

This sitting and waiting - it’s got to stop.They all need to be doing something.She knows how they should play it but oh, God, she can’t be the only one who is itching to slit some Hydra throats.

She can’t, not yet.In the meantime all she can do is watch Steve and Barnes to make sure they don’t go under.Her gut tells her Steve will find his way back before things get too bad, but he is awfully stubborn and too used to martyrdom.If he thinks he’s doing right by Barnes he’ll chew that glass till he’s got no teeth and after that he’ll gum it.

Not for the first time, she thanks the universe for Clint Barton.Only now does she understand what she put him through.He’s a saint with a bow and some heirloom tomatoes. 

 

 

He falls asleep for minutes, it seems, but his mind is _alive_ , awful in its clarity.His original handler is there with his glacial demeanor and bored tones.Always bored, unimpressed, dour even by Russian standards.It makes the Asset angry, now, the ease with which that man made him cease to exist.

“Soldat,” he says.“Choose.”

The voice chills him, bursts adrenaline in his veins.

_Choose.Choose.Choose._

Sometimes they made him do that, a mockery of autonomy.It was only to make him an active participant in his own dehumanization.The cruelty is staggering.

_Choose._

Wood and mirrors, six girls dancing in baby pink selected with pedophilic enthusiasm, limbs too thin, frightened eyes.Except for one.

_Choose_.

His handler is, for once, not bored.His eyes glitter.It is terrifying.

_Choose_.

He does the only thing he can.He chooses the girl who is too cold to be afraid.Who, they whisper, is one of those _orphanage cases_ that never got touched, never learned how to form attachments.He chooses her because there is a chance she might survive.The other girls, they are already dead.

He does not know if it is a dream or a memory or a bit of both.But holding a gun to the back of a little girl’s head, beneath a perfectly spun ballet bun, is horrible either way.The white noise in his head roars, consumes.Names dance in his consciousness.

_Svetlana, Vera, Lyuba, Marina—_

_Natalia._

The Asset wakes, gasping for breath, the burden of it crushing his chest.

 

 

 

At four in the morning it wakes her; the heavy fear that she thought she’d mastered, stirred up by her ruminations.For a moment her brain is in Moscow, her fingers on a barre draped in spiderwebs.She can feel a man’s hand creeping up the inside of her thigh.Natasha shifts, a small sound caught in her throat.It’s just the cast.Just the cast. 

She will never tell anyone this, because it’s sick and she knows it.But in times where she feels truly unmoored, she always retreats to the memory of blood.Once upon a time its garish brilliance and bathwater heat were the only breaks in the cold monotony of her life.The only things that could provoke emotion in her, because it meant success.Victory.Control.

The thought of opening a vein centers her.She tells herself it’s no stranger than Bruce being calmest in the midst of chaos, as he seems to be lately.When her eyes adjust to the dark she realizes she isn’t alone.

Barnes is at the foot of her bed.She can just see the outline of his broad shoulders and dark crown where he sits, back against the end of the mattress.Guarding her because he can’t sleep and is not allowed to guard Steve.

“Natalia,” he says brokenly.

There.There it is.Her memory is not always as reliable as she’d have others believe, layered over as it is with psychological barriers.Yet a part of her knew him as far back as Odessa, when he shot a hole through her abdomen to kill her charge.A familiar ghost.

“Natasha,” she corrects, and doesn’t hide the quiver in her voice.“There is no Natalia.”

His breath hitches like the words hurt him.

“Speak,” she says, as gently as she can.

“Steve, he…he called me _Bucky.”_ He turns, shows his profile, but that is where courage ends, even with the dark shrouding him.“Is Bucky like Natalia, or is he like Natasha?” 

It is her turn to whisper, “Both.”

 

 

 

Clint finds him crouched behind the sofa the next day in silent hysterics.There’s a picture of Clint’s children in their Halloween costumes from last year on the floor.It’s the only one he kept in the house, beneath the wooden panel of a trick drawer.Everything else he sent with Laura.

“I was looking for a gun,” Barnes confesses, unprompted.He can’t tear his eyes from the picture.Clint’s daughter is dressed as a ballerina and his son is, of course, Captain America.He doesn’t take it personally; his kids don't know who he is, what he does, or what kind of company he keeps at work.If his son has to aspire to be like someone, Steve is a damn great choice.

“It’s okay,” Clint says.He takes the picture and sets it out of sight.He’ll have to burn it later; this foolish little indulgence has exponentially increased the danger to his family.All the more reason to keep Hydra from ever getting their hands on James Barnes again.

“You sent them away,” he says, and there is a deep shame in his voice.“Because of me.”

“Because of Hydra.”

Without the children staring right at him, Barnes begins to calm.Clint knows it isn’t about him sending his kids away.He doesn’t ask for an explanation; he’s not sure he wants it.

“Why do you need a gun?” he asks instead.

Barnes doesn’t answer.He just sits, knees drawn up, and stares and stares and stares.

 

 

 

That afternoon JARVIS routes a call through from Dr. Fine.He says he’s found a way for them to get imaging on both Steve and Barnes, so they know the extent of the damage and how best to treat it.Tony frowns and grills Fine with about a thousand questions before he agrees to it on the team’s behalf.That earns him a few glares - Bruce and Sam, primarily - but nobody puts up a fight.In four days they’ll go.

There are a lot of logistics to consider.Staying hidden is the most important thing; Tony doesn’t kid himself that Hydra is unaware of who sabotaged their helicarriers, but no one _saw_ it happen.They can’t manipulate the situation without proof.It’s crucial that they stay hidden until the time is right.

The other thing is the emergence back into the world.They’ve been off the grid.Out there Barnes will be exposed.The others don’t understand the reach of technology as well as Tony does.Almost _anything_ could be used to relay those Russian words.For all he knows they’re playing on repeat, buried in every TV and radio broadcast.He sets JARVIS to exploring his suspicions and he’s right; the major networks are undercut with it, and it isn't just what first came over their phones during the emergency broadcast.There are orders now.

_Return to headquarters for maintenance.Kill all who attempt to stop you.Comply.Comply.Comply._

Maintenance.He hasn’t forgotten what Barnes said that first day, something about a chair.God only knows what that is.Tony feels the expression on his face go ugly.Fuck these people. 

In the end, the lowest-tech solution is the best one until they can come up with something better.Bruce’s noise-canceling headphones, pumped full of Pink Floyd and Danzig and some operatic metal that Darcy likes, will keep him from hearing anything as long as they’re on.The iPod will stay in airplane mode.It’s clear that Barnes _hates_ the idea of having one of his senses blunted but he understands the necessity.

Four days later, they board the jet.Every one of them is nervous.The farm really has become their safe house.Tony expects Steve and Barnes to sit together, but Steve makes a point of giving his resurrected best friend space that he clearly doesn’t want.

Tony isn't the only one who has noticed the new distance between Steve and Barnes.Between Steve and _everyone._ He’s pulling away.But even as he retreats, Steve is going through the motions.He eats.It’s never much, and sometimes he can’t keep it down, but he dutifully eats when the rest of them eat.He’s thrown himself into trying to rehabilitate his body and that at least is working.His left side is getting stronger and steadier.He tries to be useful in his waking hours, helping Clint with farm chores with surprising skill for a city boy.He sleeps when he’s supposed to sleep, in between episodes of waking up screaming.He can’t talk, but man, can he scream like the fucking devil, wordless, blood-curdling things.Barnes always looks like he’s going to crawl out of his skin afterward.It doesn’t escape any of them that there was a lot less screaming when they were together.

Tony recognizes it for what it is.He does the same thing.He tries to circle around the huge steaming shitpile that is his grief by doing something, _anything_ else.He’s been cushioned by Bruce and Darcy, lately, and that helps.Makes him functional.

But Steve - Steve is going to crash and burn _hard,_ soon, if he keeps this up.So is Barnes.Tony is absolute shit at emotional conversation but if Clint and Natasha don’t take the initiative soon, he’s going to have to try.Whatever favors they think they’re doing one another by pulling apart, both of their resident nonagenarians were better off when they were glued together at the hip.

Or maybe he won’t have to try.Barnes looks a second away from a breakdown, unable to hear and knowing he’s going to a doctor.The man is petrified of doctors.Steve can’t help himself; he gets up and sits next to him, close enough for their legs to touch, and that calms him during the short flight. 

Once they arrive the fear returns.Steve offers his hand and doesn’t seem to mind the way Barnes clutches at him hard enough to bruise.Steve sits with him through the whole series of scans, solid and patient in a way he can’t be for himself.A glance at his face yields darkness; like Tony, he’s probably thinking about what’s been done to Barnes to make him so afraid.

Tony is uncharacteristically quiet as he listens to Fine and the other doctor, a Stephen Strange, review the scans.He knows the name.The guy is some hot-shot neurosurgeon.Or he was, before Hydra shot him while he was driving and his car went off a damn cliff.All things considered he looks pretty good, but his hands are mangled.He’s miserable and mean and brilliant.Nobody in their contingent takes it personally.He thinks Barnes might feel comfort in the way Strange talks to him, blunt and impatient.

“What did they use to create these lesions?”He points a crooked finger at the picture of Barnes’s brain.

“Chair,” he says.The muscles in his face twitch.“Shock.”

“Electroconvulsive therapy?” Bruce asks.

“Not very therapeutic in this instance,” Strange mutters.“Your brain is scarred, specifically in the memory centers.In the absence of other imaging I can’t say if it’s stagnant or improving.How frequently did they shock you?”

“Always,” he grits out.“Cryo.Shock.Mission.Debrief.Shock.Cryo.”

“Cryo?” Fine says.He’s stopped what he’s doing.“Like cryogenic freezing?”

“So they would overexpose you to electricity with the intent to injure your brain and then freeze you,” Strange stays, flat.“Charming.You should be dead.”

Steve takes the pen that’s listing from Dr. Fine’s fingers. _SERUM_ , he writes on his clipboard.

“Ah.”Strange considers it.Then he fixes Barnes in a stare.“Did you start to remember things, when you were out on your missions?”

He nods.

“What’s the longest you ever went between shocks?”

“Nine days,” Barnes responds immediately.

“And how long has it been now?”

“Sixty-four.”

“Come back in a week.I’m willing to bet these lesions will look different.”Just like that, he’s done with Barnes.He turns to Steve - not far, since Barnes is still death-gripping his wrist - and says, “Your turn, Captain.”

 

 

 

Thor thinks that maybe Loki is impressed at the speed with which he’s progressing.Then again, he was always a fast learner at everything except humility. 

“Do you know how long it took me to learn this?” he huffs, annoyance clear in his tone.

“A week?” Thor guesses.

“A month,” Loki responds.“Have I any blessings at all?”

“I still have much to learn.”He’s learned to control his face, but still needs to work on the rest of him, and so far, of almost thirty trials, he’s only succeeded in dissociating his mind from his body once.It was minutes ago, and he still feels dizzy from it.It is difficult to describe the feeling of being outside his body looking down. 

Loki looks thoughtful.“Try.”

“What?To project?”

“Yes.Try it.”

“How?”

“Will your mind to be somewhere else.”

Thor stares at him, thinking his directions woefully inadequate. 

“Do not think of the distance or space.It is irrelevant.It is all connected.”Loki’s tone is chastising.“You paid no attention at all to Heimdall’s teachings, did you?”

“I did, but…”He remembers it, can repeat it, but he has never _understood_ it.Not the way Loki does, apparently.

“It is only your mind.No form.It is form that holds us here, Thor.Leave it behind.” 

“What if I can’t find my way back?”

“This is a small distance, and the mind and body do not like to be separated.They call one another.”

He braces himself for Loki’s scorn when he asks his next question.“Does it hurt?”

Loki just tilts his head.“The God of Thunder, afraid of pain?”He laughs.“No, it doesn’t hurt.At least it never hurt me, and it does not seem to hurt mother, either.Come, do what you just did, but think of another place.Your quarters, perhaps.”

“It took me thirty tries just to float above my own head.What makes you think I can do this?”

“Are you _stalling_?” Loki asks, sly.

Thor rubs a hand over his face.The thought of throwing his mind from his body has always troubled him.He _likes_ his body and its surety.There’s a reason he never learned these things; he never wanted to.His mother had long since given up telling him that he ought not limit himself.

“Yes,” he admits.“But I will try.”

Loki sits back, waiting.Thor takes a deep breath.Concentrates on floating with the currents of the universe.It comes easier this time, the unlocking, and Loki’s right, it doesn’t hurt.I just feels _strange._ Unbalanced.But light, very light, like he does not have enough substance to keep from floating apart—

“Focus,” he hears Loki say, distantly. 

So he pushes his mind outward, thinking of his quarters, the fur-strewn bed he has not slept in, the table with the always-ready pitcher of mead.All of a sudden he’s looking right into it.He’s above the table.His mind is here, staring into the honey wine, and his body is loose and unprotected down in the dungeons.A spike of panic spears him and it’s tumbling away, digging claws into his consciousness and dragging him back.

He gasps and opens his eyes.Loki is staring at him, leaning forward with undisguised interest.

“You did it,” he said - a statement, not a question. 

Thor nods, not quite recovered.“I couldn’t…I couldn’t hold on, I thought about…”

“Your body, unprotected?” he asks knowingly.“That is the call.That is the power your body exerts over your mind, like an anchor.You must learn to ignore it.”

In this moment, with his heart pounding in his chest, that seems impossible.

“Now convince me,” Loki demands.“Convince me that you are fearless.”

“How can I convince you when you know otherwise?”

Loki puts his fist down onto the floor with a thump.“From this point forward, _no one_ should know otherwise.Do you understand?”

Thor contemplates him.Loki is a good, if exacting teacher.Not for the first time he wishes he could trust him.

“I understand.”

 

 

 

It’s not news to him that he should be dead.He’s pretty darn used to that, actually.Steve listens as Dr. Strange talks about his brain injury and only understands about half of it.But that half makes sense.He can’t control his emotions because the part of his brain that does that and a lot of other important things took the worst of it.

Strange grills Bucky about the aftermath of the beating.Bucky responds dutifully and looks like he wants to die while he does it.He asks about things like posturing (flexion or extension?), pupils, responsiveness, reflexes, most of which Bucky can’t answer.

“Seizures?”

“Yes,” Bucky says.“Five.Two big, three small.None since we…” he struggles for words.“Left.”

Then he rapid-fires questions at Steve, about sounds and smells and visual disturbances.He writes what he can on Dr. Fine’s clipboard. _No sounds no visual disturb. almost all smells and tastes make me feel sick._ And that prompts more questions about nausea and dizziness and a dozen vision tests.Steve can see in the tapping of Tony’s foot that he’s getting annoyed.Even Bruce looks bothered.There’s no gentleness in Dr. Strange, that’s for sure, but Steve doesn’t mind him.It’s clear that the knows what he’s doing.Reminds him of Colonel Phillips, a bit.

Strange tells him to do something called Constraint Induced Therapy.More or less, he should tie his good arm down and do everything with the bad one.He rambles about neural plasticity, which Bruce and Tony seem to understand.Then he picks up a pen and writes several names and e-mails on a prescription pad with painstaking effort, wincing as he does it.

“Physical therapist, occupational therapist, speech pathologist, neuropsychologist.If any of those bleeding hearts are Hydra I give up,” he says.“They’ll be able to help you more than me.You’re back next week for another scan, too.” 

And that’s that.Dr. Strange is done. 

 

 

 

Bruce hangs back.Strange is done with them but not the scans; he keeps staring back and forth between Barnes and Steve and shaking his head.

“Superhumans,” he mutters when he realizes Bruce is lingering.“And fucked up all the same.”

“All systems move toward entropy,” Bruce replies.“Even the super ones.”

Strange is quiet for a moment. 

“Is there something I can help you with, Dr. Banner?I should maybe preface that with a definitive statement about how I’ll never agree to put _you_ in an enclosed scanner.”

Bruce chuckles, which probably isn’t what Strange expects.

“Look,” he says, “everyone knows I have a little problem with anger.”

“Yes, I’ve heard I wouldn’t like you when you’re angry.”Ah, feigned nonchalance - the same security blanket that Tony’s always dragging around.

“There’s a place in Nepal.Kamar-Taj.They helped me learn to control my anger, and they might be able to help you, too.”

“With what, exactly?” he asks, tight-lipped.“The only thing I want is for my hands to work again and since I live within the bounds of reality I know that isn’t going to happen.”

“Your hands don’t define you, like my anger doesn’t define me.”Strange’s face goes a mottled pink-white.Bruce knows he’s hit the nerve.He has to wrap up; Strange is seconds away from losing his patience and saying some truly nasty things.“All I’m saying is, when this blows over, think about it.Kamar-Taj.”

“Don’t come back here,” Strange bites off, cruel in a defensive way that Bruce understands well, “or your friends can find another doctor.”

“If that’s what you want,” he says mildly.“Thank you for your help, Dr. Strange.”

 

 

 

On the flight back Bucky is restless.He can’t stop fidgeting.His leg bounces against Steve’s and the vibration should be annoying, but it’s not.Bucky used to do this in school when he was concentrating.Almost every test he ever took, someone hissed at him _your leg, Barnes, knock it off._ Steve had learned to kick him before it got to that point.

He kicks him now, gently, just to see what will happen.Bucky turns to him with a look fit to kill, but it’s only a flash before he realizes and wipes it away.It’s the same look he’d get in school decades ago.Exactly the same.Steve leans his head back and stares at the roof.

When they’re twenty minutes out from the farm, Bucky kicks him.Steve meets his sideways gaze with one of his own.Loathe as he is to admit it, because it’s so weak of him to want or need it from the man next to him, he feels better like this.After days of feeling like he’s trudging through sand dunes, the ground is solid again.

“All the time they were doing that to you, I could have stopped them,” Bucky says after a long moment, and it’s too loud because of the headphones.Tony is blatantly eavesdropping.Bucky’s gaze shifts to his lap, spine curved with shame

Steve’s stomach sinks.He shakes his head hard enough to get dizzy.He forgot to give Fine’s pen back and uses it on his hand now.He lays it, palm up, against Bucky’s right knee. 

_No.They would have hurt you, too._

Bucky’s response is solemn.“You protected me.I should have protected you.”

Steve writes on his wrist because he’s out of room on his palm. 

_It wasn’t your mission_. 

He doesn’t want Bucky to feel guilty.He did what he knew, what was safe.It isn’t his fault.Neither is the loathsome voice in Steve’s head that says, over and over again, _you let them do this to you for someone who doesn’t even exist anymore._ That’s the trauma and the rage at work, he knows, but sometimes it still takes hold of him.That thought and others have made him glad he can’t talk right now.Still, he worries that they can see it on his face.He’s spent more time in the barn and Bruce’s room than anywhere else the last few days.

“I won’t let them hurt you again,” Bucky says, in a voice that holds terrible promise.

Tony is leaning so far out of his seat that he’s liable to fall.Steve wishes Bucky wasn’t talking with such volume but he can’t help it.He doesn’t realize.

This time, Steve writes on Bucky’s hand. 

_I know._

Bucky stares at it for a long minute. Then he closes his hand over the words like he’s holding a diamond, and Steve sees the way the tips of his fingers worry at his palm.The ink is smeared beyond recognition by the time they get back, but he thinks it’s tattooed on Bucky anyway.He glows with Steve’s trust.

That’s what makes him crawl back into the bed in their shared room that night.He’s not Bucky, but he isn’t entirely _not_ Bucky.That’s very, very clear when his lips twitch into the infant stages of a smile when he realizes Steve is staying with him.

He sleeps.They both sleep, long and late, and Steve shocks everyone the next afternoon when he eats two pieces of toast and an apple without even a trace of the usual fight with his gag reflex.He spends the rest of the day reading what JARVIS pulls up for him on brain injury, so that next time they go to see Strange, he might understand a little bit more about what’s going on beneath his skull.

 

“We’re fencing ourselves in,” Tony says as he paces.It’s late and the music is off because people are trying to sleep.The quiet makes Tony antsy.He’s tapping his fingers on every available surface.

Bruce takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes.They’ve been at it for hours, trying to link together the bits of data and ideas that could give them a viable algorithm.“How’s that?” 

“Well, you can bet Zola wasn’t thinking about privacy or morality or human dignity when he wrote his algorithm.He couldn’t have used soft parameters, either.He didn’t care about the potential for error.”Tony picks up a dry erase marker and scribbles a mess of calculus, then erases it and rewrites something completely different.He erases that, too.“Those people on the borderline, they’re just collateral damage.Hydra wouldn’t care if they accidentally killed too many people, or if some of the people they killed might be swayed.”He’s tapping the uncapped marker against his lips.The room is taking on that toxic, suffocating marker smell.

“So you think he’d err on the side of too many, rather than too few,” Bruce summarizes.

“Yes.Wouldn’t you?”

“Well, I’d never create something like this in the first place.”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying!” Tony bursts out, gesticulating, managing to draw a red line across his own stubbled cheek.“We have to stop trying to be us, and be them.”He writes ‘WWHD’ in huge letters on the board.

Bruce raises an eyebrow.“Please tell me that doesn’t mean what I think it means.”

“What Would Hydra Do?” Tony demands.Bruce can’t help it; he rolls his eyes.

“You know I’m a pacifist, right?”

“Yeah, pacifism’s making _waves_ right now, Big Green.It’s really compatible with mass murder.”

He sighs.He knows Tony is right, but that doesn’t mean he has to be comfortable with it.With a shake of his head, he picks up a second marker - blue - and divides the white board horizontally.He labels the top Them, and the bottom Us.

“Okay.In theory, if we can crack Zola’s algorithm, it should only be a matter of reversing it to get the result we want.We make the exclusions the inclusions.”

Tony frowns.“In grossly oversimplified theory.”They both know it’s rare for the math to cooperate so easily.

“So we take what we know - what Sitwell revealed to Sam and Steve and Natasha - and plug it in, plus a few other things.JARVIS, can you compile a list of everyone who died the day Insight went live, plus known targets who are still alive?”

“Certainly, Dr. Banner,” the AI responds.“It will take some time.”

“Understood.In the meantime we run our own simulation.See how closely the results match up.”

Tony is nodding.He’s climbed on board Bruce’s train of thought.“And we tweak it and run it again, until it gets closer and closer to what we need.Bruce, I don’t say this to many people because I’m me, but you’re a genius.”

“You might not think so after the hundredth trial.This could take a long time, Tony.”

“No.We’re gonna get it.We’re smarter than him, Bruce.Smarter than _them_.”

Bruce starts to plug in criteria.Voting records, bank records, medical records, social media accounts and posts, level of education, religious and political affiliation, sex, race, police records, GPA - it’s all just the tip of the iceberg.There could be things in the algorithm that they’ll never guess, things that seem totally unrelated.But if they can get anywhere close - five percent, even ten percent if he’s going to let himself think like Hydra - they might have something to work with.

To _pretend_ to work with.Because this is all just pretend.Posturing.His eyes settle on Tony, follow his newly energized movements.It’s pretend for Bruce, and somehow he has to make sure it stays pretend for Tony, too.And that, he knows, is easier said than done.

 

 

One night while Thor is on watch, Darcy wanders out into the living room to sit with him.She’s a night owl, always has been; Jane used to joke that the only reason she picked Darcy to be her intern was because her application said as much, and the last intern was always falling asleep when she needed him most.Of course it’s not true.Darcy is more than smart enough to have earned it.

The book in her hand catches his eye.

“What is that?” he asks in surprise.“It looks like a children’s storybook.”

“I guess it does,” she agrees.“But it isn’t, not really.”She holds it out to him and Thor takes it. _The Little Prince_.On the cover there is a cartoon of a boy in green clothing.He’s standing on what looks like a small moon.Thor feels lonely just looking at it.Darcy muses, “I haven’t read it since middle school.Saw it on the shelf and thought maybe I should give it another try.You understand things better when you’re older.You know, Led Zeppelin, sex jokes, mustard.”

“Mustard requires understanding?” he asks.

“Yeah, like understanding why anyone would ever put it on anything.”

Thor has only had mustard once, when Tony put it and several other spreads on something called a dirty water hot dog and told him to eat it.He found it pleasant enough.Same for Led Zeppelin.He’s realized that humans have strange aversions, however.

“What is the tale of the Little Prince?”

“Read it,” she says.“It won’t take long.”

Thor looks at the book Sam lent him for the night.He likes human literature better than Asgardian; it’s so… _passionate_.So full of the adrenaline of mortality.These Harry Potter books are no exception, but currently he is annoyed that no one believes Harry’s assertion that Voldemort is back.

“You’re finished with it?” he asks.

She nods.Then she curls up against his side and closes her eyes.

He’s engrossed in the slim volume thirty minutes later, when she speaks.

“What are you doing in Asgard?”

It takes him a moment to return from the story, which he already knows will require more than one reading to fully understand.Darcy is the first to ask him outright why he keeps disappearing.He won’t lie to her, even though he knows how to do that now.

“I’m learning.”

“Learning what?”

“Watch,” he says softly.Then he closes his eyes, lets himself drift.He knows from her intake of breath that she sees him standing in the doorway of the kitchen, where he’s cast his mind and his image.It’s only the third time he’s managed to do that.It feels easier on Midgard.It may be; in the dungeons, where he practices with Loki, there are probably spells at work which dampen things.

“When I said to think of Loki and his illusions,” she says, voice shaky, “I didn’t mean—”

“I know,” he say gently.“But imagine what I can do if I master this.I can monitor our enemies without them ever knowing I’m there.I can send untraceable messages to anyone we need.I can be in two places at once.It was always within my ability to do these things, Darcy, I just chose not to learn.I didn’t think I needed it.But I do. _We_ do, if we hope to win this fight.”

She sighs, and her hands twist in her lap.At last she says, “Okay.But be careful.”

He kisses her on the temple and wonders what Heimdall would think of her.What he _does_ think of her, since he’s no doubt watching them right now and seeing his own wisdom fall from her lips.Her hair smells like what Thor has positively identified as coconut.To him it is a heavenly scent, but he’s been told that many humans dislike it.Strange, strange creatures, yet so easy to love.

“I am, milady.I am.”

 

 

 

Steve wakes with his hands up and his heart in his mouth.His breath is harsh and his body has proven once again that cold sweat is not just a turn of phrase.He tries to find composure the way Bruce taught him, breathing in through the nose, out through the mouth.He can’t remember the dream, thank God, but the menace is under his skin nonetheless and sometimes that’s worse, not knowing what you were fighting.

He doesn’t think he screamed but Bucky materializes anyway.He takes hold of Steve’s hands and coaxes them down.He’s warm.Steve lets awareness seep into his fingers.Bucky’s touch has always been good.He’s probably imagining that it lingers.

A minute later Bucky gets up and pulls a fresh shirt from a drawer.He strips Steve’s sweat-soaked undershirt away and helps him into the new one.It’s Sam’s.All of their laundry is beginning to get mixed up.He thinks about Tony getting stuck in one of Natasha’s black tees yesterday morning so that he does not think about the graze of Bucky’s fingers on his ribs.

Bucky has nightmares, too.Last night, after a bad one, Steve had run gentle fingers across his scalp and through his hair until he fell back to sleep.He wonders if Bucky will do the same for him.He both wants it and is terrified of it.Steve is always having to remind himself that nothing is as it was, and the more casual contact they have, the harder that becomes.

Bucky watches him for a few minutes, until he’s calm.Then he says, “Steve.Are you cold?”

He wiggles a hand in a so-so gesture.He will be, until the hair at the base of his neck dries.He props up on an elbow to turn the pillow over.That’s when Bucky gets downright verbose.

“I can warm you.Until you sleep.If you want.”He shakes his head as soon as the words leave his mouth.He’s entirely unable to meet Steve’s eyes.“Stupid.  Why would you want…you can have my blanket, instead.I don’t need it.” 

Steve reaches around him for his phone.At night it’s easier than writing and in airplane mode it poses no threat.Against his better judgment he types: _I want._ It’s the simplest way to tell Bucky a very complicated thing - that he’s not afraid of him, that he doesn’t blame him, that no one ever hurt him on a bed with soft words and hands and he’ll be damned if he lets what hurts he did endure close him off forever.

He turns the phone to Bucky.He reads, and very slowly, he looks up.

“You…want?” he asks, incredulous. 

Steve types _As long as you want._

He nods.

Steve moves over so he can be the big spoon.He isn’t afraid, but just the thought of someone behind him where he can’t see makes him uncomfortable.Endless hours of the first day in Hydra’s captivity were spent facedown on a metal table, drugged and chained so tightly that he couldn’t move.People came in and out and he had no idea who they were, and no one spoke to him.It was its own kind of torture, that vulnerability.Just the prelude, though.

Bucky slides in facing him at first.He frowns, knowing where Steve’s mind has gone.

“Don’t think about it.Don’t.”His jaw clenches and his eyes darken.“Fuck.I’ll kill them.”

It shouldn’t, but it makes Steve smile. _You already did_ , he types into the phone.

“I’ll kill more.”

The smile fades, and a pain borne of love and loss and wrath blooms in him.

_You don’t ever have to kill again, do you understand?Never._

Bucky’s brow creases and he gives Steve a perplexed look.“It’s war.”

There’s really not much Steve can say to that; it’s true, but he’s not ready to give up.

_What I meant is that you will never be ordered to kill someone ever again, not by us.If you choose to fight with us then yes, there may be times when we have to kill to protect ourselves or others.But we will never force you.It will always be your choice._

Bucky chews on his thumbnail for long minutes as he thinks.

“If I…want to…go?”

Steve ignores the way his stomach turns over.He has to mean what he says; Bucky will know if he doesn’t, and it’s so important that he’s offered real choices.Captivity is still captivity, even with benevolent captors.He refuses to do that to Bucky.

He types: _Then you go._

“No,” Bucky says, with an odd tranquility.“I can’t protect you from somewhere else.”

Steve types furiously. 

_I want you to stay if you want to stay, not because of anything you were ordered to do.We don’t control you.And it doesn’t seem like it now, but I can take care of myself._

Bucky casts eyes on him and they’re _old_.Old, and full of the ripe burden of memories.

“You can,” he says, measured.“But you don’t.And Hydra…they need to be stopped.Permanently.”One of his fingers traces the well-hidden scar along Steve’s hairline, where the surgeons went in to fix his ruined facial bones.“Maybe…after…”

Steve closes his eyes.He hasn’t let himself think about that.It’s a fragile hope that there will be an after, and that said after might include Bucky in any capacity.

When he opens his eyes, Bucky is staring at his lips. His eyes jerk up quickly, but they’re appraising.Steve knew he’d remember other things eventually, and the way he’s looking…it’s like the other night, after stargazing, but…less afraid.Maybe he’d misinterpreted that. 

Bucky moves forward the barest inch.Yes, definitely misinterpreted.Bucky is going to kiss him.Exhilaration and panic load double barrels in his chest and he absolutely does not want Bucky to do this because they used to, because he thinks Steve wants it, and what kind of person _is_ he, to want it from someone as fragile as Bucky?To want it at all, after…he’s not…he doesn’t feel clean enough to kiss.He feels the way he did back in the day when a punch would lay him out on the curb in a puddle of liquefied summer trash juice.There's no detergent out there that can scrub Hydra off him, but in that, Steve supposes they’re in the same boat.

“You want?” Bucky whispers, very, very close.

Steve opens his mouth and it feels momentous, like words - like _assent -_ might actually come out, but before he can say anything a door snaps open in the hallway.Bucky is across the room in his own bed so fast that Steve doesn’t even see him move.All he knows is that there is a cold spot next to him, where seconds before there was warmth. 

He closes his eyes and tries to catch his breath.That reaction is a holdover from a time when even the possibility of discovery held consequences neither of them cared to think about.Steve hears Darcy pad down the hallway.For long minutes he listens to the gentle murmur of conversation between her and Thor.  They're just far away enough that he can't make out the words, but their voices are comforting.

He turns over onto his left side and faces the wall.Traces the texture of the paint, appreciating the way its many layers have immortalized any little imperfection in the wall.He remembers a time when scars were the reminders of a life lived and not just badges of suffering.

God fucking damn it.He really doesn’t want to cry.

It’s quiet now, and Steve starts badly when the covers move, but it’s only Bucky.He slides back into the bed and molds himself to Steve’s back.It doesn’t feel the way he imagined, having his back to Bucky.Not like on that table, in those chains, thoughts slow and viscous with enough drugs to kill an elephant.It feels _safe_.

Steve relaxes.The moment’s gone and it’s probably for the better.They aren’t ready for it.They may never be ready for it, and to force something like that…

_Nothing is as it was._

Bucky’s arms curl around him loosely.For just a minute Steve lets it in.He pretends he’s twenty again, small enough to really fit against Bucky, and surrounded by his warmth and his smell it all falls away. 

 

 

It’s in the hour before sunrise that he checks on Steve and James.There is no longer need for a watch on them, but Thor likes to cast an eye over the two men just the same.Nightmares are a frequent visitor to both.James, in particular, likes the weight of Mjolnir on his chest when he emerges from a terror.He takes comfort in the knowledge that he cannot harm anyone with it there.He doesn’t say that, of course, but Thor knows.

Tonight they are still and calm.And, Thor notes, in the same bed - Steve’s bed.That’s new.It’s comical, almost, two large men on the single mattress, but they fit.Steve is facing the wall on his side and James is molded to his back.It’s intimate and it’s protective, and their sleep is untroubled.

His brain drifts to the chapter he just read - the fox explaining to the Prince how to tame him.A smile plucks at his lips; it is so like them, that silent dance, a little closer each day.But then the smile fades with the weight of understanding.He opens the book and pages back a little. 

_You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed._

Oh.

It hits him, a fist in the gut.What the fox is really talking about.What it means that James remembers Steve when he can’t even remember his own name, and why Steve is determined to save him at any cost.Thor understands quite suddenly what they had been - what they _are_.  What he himself had with Jane.

He closes the book with weak hands.Darcy is right.This isn’t a children’s story at all.

Thor retreats to the porch, and in the ensuing hours he feels so far from godlike that he aches. 

 

 

It takes JARVIS thirty hours to compile the list of dead, run the first iteration of their hodgepodge algorithm, and compare its results with the actual death toll.They’re off by 126,944 names, and 716 others are on the list that appear nowhere on the master obituary or survivor list.

They tweak it.Take some things out, add others in.Another fourteen hours sees them off by almost 175,000.The more they run it the faster JARVIS gets; soon a run doesn’t take much more than three hours.It’s around Mark 27 that they start to get close.

When Mark 31 runs, they’re only off by 39,003, and eight names.

“That’s almost five percent,” Tony says.He hasn’t slept in nearly three days and they’re both coming off an all-nighter.

“Sir,” JARVIS speaks up, “I recommend you take some time to sleep while I run Mark 32.You are scheduled to accompany your friends to see Doctor Strange this evening.”

“Do we _need_ Mark 32?” Tony asks.

“Tony,” Bruce says firmly, “go to sleep.”

 

 

 

Bruce doesn’t run Mark 32.He’d set their bar of success at five percent error, thinking they’d never get there, but Tony was right; together, they _are_ smarter than Zola.Bruce sits in the lab staring at the white board as exhaustion rolls over him.

Where Bruce had written ‘Them’ and ‘Us’ that first day, Tony has replaced it with ‘INSIGHT’ and ‘ULTRON’ - Ultra Low Threshold Requisite Of Neutralization.He said if Hydra got to have codenames for their murder projects, so did the Avengers.It’s real to Tony; maybe not the murder part, but Bruce knows in his gut Tony wants to make something of this.He wants to try to reverse the algorithm and make ULTRON a reality.

The sooner they present this to the rest of the team, the better.Bruce knows it will be a hard no for some - Steve, Sam, maybe Thor.It’s already a hard no for him, as anything more than an intimidation tactic and last resort.The others…he can’t say.But he can’t let this go on unchecked anymore.Tomorrow, ULTRON will make its debut, and maybe the team can help him put a lid on Tony.

 

 

 

There are three of them this time; Natasha’s finally getting her cast off and nobody is looking forward to it more than she is.Dr. Fine uses the little hand-held circular saw to cut it away.Her x-rays look good.Her femur, tibia, and metatarsals are healed.The muscles, of course, are mush, atrophied from weeks of disuse, and her joints are tight from immobilization.It doesn’t stop her from walking as soon as Fine gives the okay.

Seeing her standing on both feet sans crutches pulls a rare smile from Steve.He gets an even rarer grin from her in response.He knows how much it’s been killing her to be out of commission.He can relate.

Bucky is calmer today, now that he knows no harm will come to him under the care of Doctors Fine and Strange.He is still and loose in the scanner.Steve knows from Strange’s reaction to the images that the scan of Bucky’s brain has changed.He hopes it’s for the better.

When it’s his turn he relaxes a little too much and falls asleep in the scanner.He wakes to Strange’s deep and continually impatient voice.

“Are we boring you, Captain Rogers?”

Steve shakes his head and sits up.Tony is looking at side by side comparisons of both scans with Dr. Fine.

“No wonder people are always trying to recreate Erskine’s serum,” Tony says with a shake of his head.

“Indeed,” Dr. Strange replies.“As I suspected you’re both healing rapidly.Rapidly for the central nervous system, anyway.This kind of recovery would take months, maybe years in a regular person, _if_ they survived the initial trauma at all.”

“So what’s the prognosis?” Sam asks.

“Well, you’re both on your second brain trauma, are you not?Captain Rogers, you crashed a plane into sea ice, and Sergeant Barnes, you fell off the side of a mountain.I imagine neither were soft landings.”

Once again, Steve almost speaks.Almost.In the end, nothing but a sound of consternation escapes him.They agreed not to tell Strange their metal-armed companion’s identity, but he’s obviously figured it out.Unfortunately no one has briefed him on what he is and is not supposed to say around Bucky.

“What…?” Bucky says.His face goes slack and pale, and Steve knows he’s remembering something right now, right in front of them.He reaches out for Bucky’s hand and squeezes, as much for himself as for Bucky.Bucky swallows and squeezes back, expression inscrutable.

“Ah, maybe don’t mention…” Tony gestures inarticulately into the silence.

“Right,” Strange says, aware that he’s put his foot in it.“Right.What I was getting at is the fact that you’ve both made full recoveries from previous brain injury.”

“That’s your opinion,” Sam mutters under his breath, no doubt thinking of the many veterans he’s met who look okay, but aren’t.Strange ignores him.

“Pair that with the progress on your scans, and I see no reason why this time will be any different.As long as you’re not running around getting the hell beaten out of you, you should be fine.”

“That’s basically the job description of the Avengers,” Dr. Fine points out.

“Then the two of you are on leave,” Dr. Strange says, his trademark irritation returning.

“Good luck with that,” Natasha says, sounding more like herself than she has in weeks.She’s been studiously moving her ankle up and down, trying to loosen her Achilles.“I saw you and Thor sparring yesterday, Steve.”

There are about eight things he wants to say. _And I saw you doing leg raises with one of Clint’s dumbbells tied around your cast, Nat, you’ve been putting weight on that leg for a week; what am I supposed to do, sit and rot?How will I know if I’m getting better if everyone treats me like…like people did before, when I was small and sick?_ Nothing is forthcoming, as usual, so he just shrugs.The strength is back in his left side.His coordination and balance are still a bit off and his endurance is shit, but he is much, much better.

“I will lay it out as simply as possible for you, gentlemen,” Strange says, looking as if they’ve worked his last nerve, “no physical combat of any kind.No sparring, no wrestling, no weapons, I don't even want you in a goddamn pillow fight.”

“Can they play footsie?” Tony asks, unable to restrain himself.Steve can’t hide his smile anymore than he can stop the tears when they decide to visit, and Natasha smirks, too. 

“What is _footsie_?” Bucky asks, as if it is a dire thing he must protect Steve from.Even Sam, who had been in full-on glare mode, cracks a smile at that.

Dr. Strange turns to Dr. Fine.“Is it also in the Avengers job description that one must be an asshole to apply?”

Fine nods.“Oh, absolutely.”

Strange sighs. “Of course.Please, I beg of you, see if you can go two weeks without—”

He never finishes, because Tony lets out a curse. 

“Fuck.”

“What?” Natasha demands, instantly tense.

Tony looks grim.“I don’t know how, but according to JARVIS we’ve got incoming.”

“How many?” Sam says.

“Two jets.Small, maybe six, eight each?”

“Eight,” Bucky says automatically.“Plus pilot.”

“Eighteen on seven, four of whom are in less than optimal condition.”Tony flips his faceplate down.“Yeah.Yeah, sounds like a walk in the park.Wilson?”

“With you.” 

Guns are appearing in all hands; Strange goggles at it.“Wait,” he says, “when you say incoming, you mean Hydra?”

“The squids themselves,” Tony affirms.“ _Soldat_ , earmuffs, please.Nat and Steve, get the doctors out of here.Sam and I will be the welcoming committee.”

Sam’s wings snap out.Strange jumps.

“Time to roll out the red carpet,” Sam says, and it’s as deadly as Steve has ever heard him.

He doesn’t watch them go.He has to load his gun.The action is paradoxically soothing.This he knows how to do.The waiting, the recovering, the agonizing, he’s no good at that.But fighting…it’s hardwired.

Like Tony said, it’s less than optimal, but Steve knows it’s the best they can do.There’s no way to avoid the fight.At the very least it’s dark and those eighteen men might not know what they’re walking into.He’d bet anything they were coming for Bucky; they’re going to get more than they bargained for.Steve and Natasha are recovering from injury but even at half-strength they’re not to be trifled with, and Fine can hold his own with a gun.He’s pretty sure Bucky can kill a person with just about any object or body part.Strange is really the only helpless one among them, but even with his mangled hands, he can probably hold and fire a gun.Bucky’s had the same thought, because he’s fitting one into Strange’s twisted fingers when Steve looks over a moment later.

“Why does he need headphones?” Strange asks, as they cut down a hallway toward the door that’s closest to the jet.He’s sandwiched between the people he only recently insulted - Steve and Dr. Fine in front, Natasha and Bucky behind - and Steve is sure he’s glad none of them took it personally.The air shivers as explosions rock the suburban calm.Tony and Sam have engaged.

“Pray you don’t have to find out,” Natasha replies, and they plunge into the night. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter chapter this time but a heck of a lot happens, so hold on tight.

Sam’s hopeful that they might catch a break - that his and Tony’s stealth modes will let them approach undetected, take out the threat, maybe inherit two new jets and some desperately needed weapons along the way.But they start firing at him from a hundred feet away.It’s the heat signatures.Has to be.

Sam swerves, pulling Gs and feeling the familiar drop in his stomach.There was a time when he enjoyed this.Not so much, now.

They’re not wearing cons and he can’t see Tony.The only way to communicate is by yelling at one another.It’ll work, but it will also reveal both their position and their plans.What he’d give for a goddamn earpiece and signals that aren’t full of Hydra bullshit.

The plan is pretty clear, though.Prevent the jets from landing, if they can, and if they can’t, take them out before they make it anywhere near the building.Tony’s on the same wavelength.He’s trying to draw them away.His jet falls for it and peels off to pursue, guns blazing - they want him _bad._ They know he’s the one who sabotaged the helicarriers and they want to make him pay.

They’re less interested in Sam.Try as he might, his jet doesn’t alter course.They’re going straight for the abandoned medical park where they’ve been meeting the doctors.How do they know?

He doesn’t have enough ammo to be wasting it on distraction shots.Clint and Laura have done their best to stock them, but they can only buy so much, even in a red state, without arousing suspicion.He either has to crash the jet or let it land and try his luck at picking off men who will likely be bristling with Kevlar and automatic weapons.

They don't let him get close enough to take a good shot at the wings or the engine.Looks like they’re landing.Sam hits the roof and reloads.He’s a good shot, a really good shot, but they’re seriously kitted out and he’s having a hard time finding a place not covered by body armor to place his bullets.It’s because they’re trying to take out Barnes, he realizes.They created him.They know what he’s capable of.Eighteen men in full body armor with some of the nastiest looking weapons he’s ever seen, to take on one man.

Except he’s not alone.

Sam breathes out, pushes the chaos away, and squeezes the trigger.One man falls and doesn’t get up.The neck and armpit are his kill points; can’t put rigid armor there, or else the wearer can’t move.He picks off two more but the rest are too close for comfort.He drops down to ground level; it’s time for hand to hand.

He’s very thankful for Tony’s meddling with his suit.He can use the wings as blades now.Can’t shoot through Kevlar but you sure as hell can puncture it.It might not kill them but it slows them down.

He actually thinks for the briefest second that he’s going to do it.He’s going to take out all nine of them and inherit a jet.That’s when he hears the rumble.A third one.Fuck, a third one.It’s a helicopter this time.Bullets ping off his left wing and he has to turn away from the last few men from the first jet so they don’t end him.Those three make it into the building and now there are more, and he’s low on ammo.Tony’s nowhere to be seen.

“Incoming!” he shouts, in the hope that someone - _anyone_ \- will hear him.He rockets back up to the roof, where the helicopter landed.It looks like six men this time.Sam positions himself behind the tremendous air compressors.They’re talking, loud over the whir of the helicopter blades.

“We’ve got Iron Man and Falcon engaging, sir.The Soldier isn’t alone,” one says.

“That son of a bitch,” the leader replies, a sneer in his voice.“Ran right to Cap’s friends and they were stupid enough to take him.”It’s familiar, but Sam can’t quite place it; it stirs up feelings of absolute hatred, anyway.“Any sign of Rogers?”

“No, sir.”

“If he’s here, target him.Barnes will give himself up.”He says it with certainty as he cracks his knuckles.“Target him, but take him alive.Kill everyone else.”

They start to move.Sam grits his teeth, lets the anger roll through him, and then squeezes between the compressors to lay heavy fire over the roof access door.They aren’t going to get in easy, and they sure as hell aren’t going to lay a finger on Steve.

They return fire but the compressors are ancient and solid.It’s a good position.If he can hold them here until Tony circles back…

“Find Falcon!” the leader shouts with psychotic glee.“Clip his wings.Rogers’ll love that!”

“Any day now, Tony,” Sam mutters as the men break off and move toward him.These men aren’t just lackeys.They’re a well-oiled machine.Hydra elites.And the guy leading them, he’s big and mean and he’s wearing a mask painted like a skull.He’s forcibly reminded of Barnes on the freeway.No good can come of this, especially when he only has one box of ammo left.

He’s got to cut his losses.Now Sam knows their play: Barnes and Steve alive.He has a sinking feeling that this time it’s not just for their sick version of fun.Hydra has a long history of trying to re-create Steve.Why go through the trouble of making serum and doing human trials when Steve is _right here_ , and they already know that Barnes is the key to getting him to do their bidding?It would play right into the story they’re weaving for the public.

No.Hell no.Ain’t gonna happen.Sam peeks over the compressor and lobs his last grenade.He turns and dives off the roof before he can see it blow, but it’s evened the odds a bit, because screams echo in the night.

 

 

 

Bucky and Natasha are taking turns firing at the agents that have planted themselves between their small group and the jet.There aren’t many of them but they’re well-trained and well-armored.The only light they have to aim by is the flash of gun barrels, which is making it more difficult than usual, but Bucky and Natasha have settled into a frightening kind of synergy without so much as a word.He fires to draw their return volley, and as soon as it lights, Natasha squeezes off a kill shot.

Dr. Strange is watching in horrified fascination.A moment later Steve hears something and jerks to his right.He fires a round free of conscious thought and thanks God that some part of him is still working, because one of the agents had tried to take advantage of the darkness and sneak around for an ambush.He falls in front of them, stricken and choking.Steve wrenches the helmet from the man’s head and fires again, ending it.Blood splashes on his shoes.It looks merciless and quite frankly he feels that way, but actually, it’s a kindness - kinder than listening to the man gasp and die slowly.Civilians don’t usually understand that, though.

“Jesus,” Strange says, pale.“I thought Captain America didn’t use guns.”

Dr. Fine replies in Steve’s stead.“Oh, sure, those Nazis just shot themselves.”He’s reloading his gun with practiced movements and it occurs to Steve that like many SHIELD agents, Fine is probably a veteran.“I bet you thought war was civilized, too.”

“You have no idea what I’ve pulled out of people’s skulls.I know very well that we’re savages.”

Steve is really glad he can’t talk.And really okay with being a savage, at present, if it means they all make it home for a midnight snack.

“You guys okay back there?” Natasha calls.

“So far,” Fine returns.

“We have to move on these last two.They’re hunkered down, can’t nail ‘em from here.Now would be a really good time for you to start talking, Steve.”

Well, shit.He knows that if Natasha was in top form she wouldn’t even be asking for his help.She wouldn’t need it.He still can’t force a word out and there really isn’t time for writing or typing.It’s all right.He’s always preferred less talking and more doing.

He crouches down to the dead man and pulls off his vest.Where the hell did he toss that helmet?There.It’s not his shield but it will do.

“What are you doing?” Strange asks. 

“Rogers, no, _wait!”_ Fine shouts as he starts to move.

Too late.Too late for a lot of things, including the two Hydra agents that stand between Steve and the jet.They don’t see him until he’s on them.The second man manages to get in a shot or two while Steve snaps the neck of the first; he feels the impact against his ribs and again on the helmet.The visor cracks and Steve’s teeth rattle.No matter.He can smell the son of a bitch.Fear-sweat stinks, and it’s nice, for once, to smell it on someone other than himself.He throws the dead man into the living one, knocking him off balance and absorbing a wildly fired bullet.His muscles coil and release as Steve tackles him.It only takes a second to wrest the gun from his grip.In another second it’s against the underside of his chin; his death is a red firework inside the helmet.

_Procedural memory._

For a moment he’s lost in it, the way blood seeps out of the cracks in the headgear to pool on the concrete.Then he comes back to himself and he’s panting, straddling a dead Hydra agent.Steve pulls his own ruined helmet off and draws lungfuls of iron-tinged air.Okay.Okay, so maybe he has some rage to work through.Shaky with adrenaline, Steve collects weapons from the bodies and waves the others on.

“All right,” Natasha says, an edge to her voice.“I was hoping for a plan, but we could also just do that.” 

“That was literally everything I just told you not to do,” Strange chimes in as they board the jet. 

“Not everything,” Bucky says, even though he shouldn’t be able to hear a damn thing they’re saying.“No pillow fight.”

“Oh, Christ,” Natasha huffs, giving Steve the stink eye when he grins.“Turn the volume back up, _now_.”

“Can’t,” Bucky replies, matter-of-fact.“It’s not working.”

“ _What?”_

“We have a problem,” Fine calls from the cockpit.

“Yeah, no _shit._ ” 

“It’s the arm,” Bucky says, “it can emit a low-level EMP that jams everything within ten feet.”

“Why the hell did you activate it?” she demands.

He looks up, and the mask of calm slips.“I didn’t.”

 

 

 

It’s flattering, really, that they want to kill him so badly, but it’s working to his advantage.The jet continues to tail him, firing liberally.The suit is going to have all kinds of dents.But something gnaws at Tony.Something about this is too easy.It doesn’t feel right.

He thought, initially, that he was leading them away.As they approach the lights of a small town dread coils in his stomach.No, no, they were leading _him_ away, trying to make him engage in front of civilians.Trying to show everyone that he’s still alive and on the attack.Very likely, they’re also trying to keep him away from whatever’s going down at the medical park.

“Shit.Shit shit shit.”

Tony reverses hard, and because he’s pissed, he curls himself up and steers directly into the left wing of the jet.They see him doing it and the pilot jerks the plane, so he doesn’t get as much of it as he’d hoped, but he still rips out a good chunk of the end of the wing.Oh, that stings.Tony grits his teeth and weathers the red spots that blink before his eyes.It hurts even through the suit and he’s probably broken a few ribs, but now those shitbags have no choice but to put down.

He doesn’t stay to watch.The longer he’s out here, the more worried he becomes.There’s no doubt that they’re after Barnes, but how the hell did they know where to find him?Tony checked him three separate times for trackers, focusing heavily on the arm, and found nothing.He was sure Barnes must have removed the ones he knew about before coming.

It dawns on him as he screams back toward the medical park.The bullet.He’d been shot three times when he arrived, a graze to the arm, a through-and-through to the right side…and the left thigh, lacerating his femoral vein, but because of the serum he healed himself and Dr. Fine never operated.The bullet is retained.Camping out somewhere in his pelvis.They shot him with the equivalent of an animal-tracking tag, and because Tony was so focused on the arm, he missed it.

But why here?Why not at the farm?It doesn’t make any sense.Unless…unless they wanted the group to be fragmented, distracted by the need to protect civilians like Strange.That’s better strategy than coming at all of them at once.

He nears the medical park and he can see the third vehicle, the helicopter, on the roof.He can also see half a dozen bodies littered around; Wilson has been hard at work, but Tony doesn’t see him just now.

“Sir,” JARVIS says, “I’m detecting the discharge of an electromagnetic weapon.The jet is incapacitated.”

That means Barnes’s iPod is out, too.Tony swears.

“What’s the source?”

“Sergeant Barnes’s arm, sir.”

Ah, sweet merciful fuck.

“Where is he?”

“On the jet with the others.”

“Can you counter the EMP so we don’t lose power on approach?”

“Yes,” JARVIS responds.“But it will take a moment, sir.”

“Do it.”Tony lands next to the helicopter and blows the pilot to hell without a second thought.A quick check shows that the helicopter still has power.The weapon’s short range, then.Good.It won’t be the first time they fly in on one thing and out on another.

He blows air between his teeth, impatient, dying to get down to the jet and dreading what he’ll find.Tony scours the sky for any sign of Wilson but finds none.He won’t think about what that might mean.Can’t, right now. 

“Compensation complete, sir.”

 

 

 

Sam hits the wall and can’t breathe.Luckily he doesn’t need to breathe in order to dodge the hydraulic fist coming at his face.This Skullface guy, he is strong as fuck and most definitely enhanced.Sam’s very much regretting his decision to engage.

He doesn’t know why the jet isn’t taking off.He saw them all board but they aren’t going anywhere.If those idiots are waiting for him and Tony, fuck, he’ll kill them himself.But Natasha wouldn’t do that.She’s not stupid, and of all the Avengers, she’s probably the one who best understands how to leave her emotions out of a decision.Something has to be wrong.

That’s why he engaged.Now he’s out of bullets and getting his ass handed to him by Skullface.Seriously, where is Stark?

Sam hears a scream coming from the jet.Skullface tilts his head back and laughs.Quite suddenly Sam knows who he is.Rumlow.Fucking Rumlow, the guy he _barely_ escaped the day of the Insight launch.And that was before the enhancement.

“Are you ready for a _show?”_ he shouts. 

 

 

 

Bucky’s arm twitches and in a rush of sick certainty Steve knows what’s going to happen.The gun comes up.He dives.

The bullet ricochets off the roof of the jet and there’s a scream, whose he doesn’t know because his ears are ringing with tinnitus.He tries to wrench the gun out of Bucky’s hand and Bucky moves to help him with his flesh and bone fingers, but the metal digits do not give.The left arm jerks hard, trying to shake Steve off; Bucky holds on to his shirt with the right and they both tumble to the floor.

“I can’t control it!” Bucky yells from on top of him.His eyes are wild and terrified.

Steve wraps his hands around the gun even as the metal index finger convulses on the trigger.It isn’t as bad as it could be because he’s bent the barrel closed and the bullet can’t escape, but it’s still an explosion.Pain sears through Steve’s left hand.Bucky makes a strangled sound.Oh.Oh, that pinky finger is never going to be the same, serum or not.

The metal hand releases the useless gun and coils for a punch.Steve’s back hits the deck of the jet and he jerks his right arm up to protect his face, knowing full well that the force generated by Bucky’s arm can snap the bones of his forearm.He prepares himself for the pain. 

“No!” Bucky shouts, and throws his body sideways.The punch lands three inches from Steve’s head and he manages to struggle to his feet.The arm flails, scrabbling for purchase, but he launches himself out the door of the jet before it can catch hold of anything.And Steve, because he’s an idiot who can’t stand the thought of Bucky out there exposed and defenseless, follows right after him.

 

 

Sam sees Barnes tumble out the door of the jet.It looks like he’s fighting his own arm.It seeks his right side as he runs, digs fingers in, and blood wells.Barnes screams but he keeps going, distancing himself from the jet.At least until the arm whips out and grabs hold of the side of the dumpster he’s trying to shelter behind, effectively clotheslining him.He goes down and the metal hand goes straight for his throat.

Rumlow is laughing. _Laughing_ as he taps at a controller on his wrist.He’s remotely controlling the arm.Barnes’s legs twitch and dig at the ground as he tries to pry the metal hand away with the other one.It isn’t working.He can’t breathe.

Sam readies himself to launch at Rumlow.It might not be easy to find an opening and destroy that controller, but he’ll slice the asshole’s arm off with his wings if he has to.He’s about to spring when Steve comes sprinting across the overgrown parking lot.He skids to Barnes’s side, knees of his jeans ripping and leaving half the skin on his patellas on the asphalt.His back is to them, open, completely unprotected save for a too-small Kevlar vest.

“God damn it,” Sam breathes, and rockets toward Steve instead. 

 

 

 

The pressure on his throat eases and air trickles through, allowing the black spots to abate for a second.Both of Steve’s hands are clamped around his metal wrist and he’s making a growling noise as he pulls with every ounce of strength he has.The Asset redoubles his efforts with his right hand and slowly, slowly, the rogue prosthesis eases away from his throat.As soon as Steve can slide a leg in, he wraps his whole body around the arm and twists him facedown into a submission maneuver.

From his position, the Asset can see what he couldn’t while his own arm was choking the life out of him.Sam Wilson is there, wings steepled behind him to protect all three of them.Bullets are pinging off the wings.Sam’s nose is bleeding and his left eye is swollen.

For a second the Asset thinks they’re okay.Steve will hold him, and Sam will fly them to safety.Fuck if he knows what they’ll do after that - rip his arm off, maybe - but it’s a plan.

But then two things happen.The EMP activates again, overloading Sam’s suit, and he feels the click of the metal plates unlocking.

“Oh no _, no_ ,” he moans, and there’s a hiss as _the shoulder joint swivels around_ , and any advantage to having it pinned behind his back is gone.Steve feels it happening and exhales though his teeth as tries to reposition but it’s too late.The arm contracts and he’s slammed to the ground, the back of his head hitting the pavement.He’s dazed, he can’t get out of the way fast enough— 

Wilson roundhouse kicks him in the face and the Asset has never been so thankful to take a hit.He stumbles away from Steve, hitting the side of the dumpster, and with his right hand he clamps on to the same bar that halted his progress with the left.Two can play at this game.He’s going to hold on until Sam can get Steve away and then he is probably going to be murdered by his own fucking appendage.

He threads his elbow through the bar, squats down, and holds on for dear life as the left arm tries to detach him.He doesn’t care if it kills him.He doesn’t care, as long as Steve gets away. 

 

 

Tony just barely ducks Natasha’s well-placed bullet as he slips into the jet.She doesn’t even apologize for shooting at him, just yells, “Where the hell have you been?”

“The jet’s fried, but there’s a helicopter on the roof.We have to go _now,_ while they’re distracted.”

“In case you failed to notice that distraction is Steve and Sam and Barnes!”

“Yeah, I noticed, but there’s only one of me!”

“Strange, Fine, go with him!” she barks.“I’m not going anywhere until I know those three are safe.” 

Tony doesn’t argue with her.He knows better, when she’s got that look.

 

 

 

Steve is not bouncing back well from the blow to the head.He can’t seem to make it any further than his hands and knees.All Sam can do is crouch over him, mind racing.His wings are stuck and there’s nowhere to go. 

His eyes catch Tony streaking away from the jet, the doctors in tow.Help is on the way.Just another minute.

“Well, this has been fun,” Rumlow’s voice booms out.“But it’s time to get serious.”

Steve’s head snaps up and all the blood drains from his face.For a second Sam thinks he’s going to pass out, but no, he’s _awake,_ and his expression tells Sam everything he needs to know.This man hurt Steve, hurt him _bad_.

He reaches out and squeezes Steve’s shoulder, trying to ground him.Steve closes his eyes.  His struggle is visible.His glance is pulled away when Barnes slumps against the side of the dumpster, left arm limp.He’s in rough shape, too, bleeding from several not-quite-self-inflicted wounds.Rumlow’s deactivated the arm, but why…?

 

 

 

The Asset tries to catch his breath.The arm, it stopped, but he knows it’s not over.He can’t control a moan of pain and frustration when Russian words begin to spill over him, projected in a cold, confident voice.

Oh, God.Oh, _God_.When will this ever be over?

Clinging desperately to whatever _self_ he’s cobbled together in the last few weeks, he crawls toward the nearest weapon.The only way for this to be over, for him not to hurt Steve and these other people who have been kind to him, is for it to be _over_.He hoped, surrounded by such ingenuity and genuine good will, that maybe…maybe there was a possibility…

“рассвет.печь.”

The gun is loaded.He lifts it.

 

 

Rumlow’s on the fourth word when Natasha steps out of the jet with a machine gun.

“Hey asshole!” she shouts, and follows it with something that’s probably much worse in Russian.Then she unleashes a hail of bullets on Rumlow.He ducks down behind something and there’s a familiar pinging noise.

“Oh, _fuck_ no,” Sam growls, just this side of blind with rage.Rumlow is holding Steve’s shield, deflecting bullets as if it’s always been his.It’s been painted black.He can still see the outline of the star, though, when the bullets spark on impact.

He’ll kill this guy with his fingers.With his teeth.With his goddamn toes if he has to.He’s pretty sure that if any of them could kill with their minds it would be done, and Tony, who has just looped back over the parking lot, is clearly in agreement.He strafes Rumlow and the agents from above, but they have good cover and that shield…

For all the noise, Tony and Natasha unloading at the same time, the words haven’t stopped.That voice is still reciting.It’s Rumlow’s voice, but it’s a recording, blaring from somewhere.They can shoot all they want but it won’t stop what’s about to happen.

“ _Sam!”_ Natasha screams, and her voice is scared.

He whips his head around and sees why.While he was distracted Steve got away from him.He’s approaching Barnes.

Sam lurches forward but a spray of bullets lands at his feet.It’s not easy to move with the wings locked and if he takes them off he’ll be swiss cheese before he gets anywhere near Steve.Tony tries to dive for him and is met with a rocket they must have been saving.At such close range he can’t avoid it and the force throws him back behind the jet.The detonation shakes the ground, and Tony’s probably fine inside the suit, but the suit itself…

Natasha’s moving forward with the machine gun and doesn’t stop, even when a bullet clips her left hip and blood gushes.It’s like she doesn’t even feel it.But she can get no closer to Steve than anyone else without incurring fatal wounds, and she has no choice but to duck down with Sam under the cover of his wings.

Her face is terrifying, because he thinks she might be close to tears.He’s there himself.He remembers Hydra’s objective, how bad they want Steve, and curses at his own helplessness.

This is exactly what they wanted.Exactly.And all they can do is just sit and watch.

 

 

 

“возвращение на родину.”

He sees Steve through blurred eyes, crawling toward him.

“Stay back,” he pleads.His head is exploding with pain, with horror, and he feels his grip on reality slipping.Feels himself retreating into that small, scared place.“Steve, stay back!Get away!” 

He expects Steve to try to take the gun from him.To try to stop him from killing himself.But when he draws even, that’s not what he does.He puts his cheek to the Asset’s, aligning their temples, and his hand slides up his wrist to cup his hand where it cradles the gun.

_Do it, Buck, it’s okay, do it, I’m with you, we’ll go together this time…_

He thinks he’s imagining Steve’s voice but no, it’s real, it’s coming out of him and it’s…

“один.”

He can’t. _He can’t._ Not Steve.

“Грузовой вагон.”

 

 

Sam tries to bail, to slip out of the wings and run when he sees what Steve is doing.Natasha catches hold of him and pins him down.He curses, even tries to bite her, but she doesn't let go.She hasn’t cried since she thought Nick was dead the first time and knew he was the second.She’s crying now; inside, she feels just like Sam.Inside, she wants to stop it because she cares about them.Loves Steve.Could grow to love Barnes the same way she’s figured out, slowly, how to love herself.

But that’s why she can’t try to stop them.They deserve the choice.They deserve to opt out without anyone trying to tell them what’s better for them.She and Clint, they have a pact; if either of them is ever subject to mind control again, the other is to kill them before they can harm others.She loves Clint but has no doubt that he’ll put a bullet in her head because _he_ loves _her_. 

There’s no _boom_ , though.Barnes didn’t pull the trigger. 

He freezes as the last word rolls over the parking lot.Everything about him changes.He goes _flat_ , hard, mechanical.The ghost reborn.He lowers the gun. Awaits orders.Steve takes hold of his face; he doesn't look at him.He could be a mannequin.

“Say something,” Sam says, a note of desperation in his voice.“You’re his handler, tell him what to do!”

“It won’t work,” she breathes.“Like this, he won’t…”Natasha drags a breath in and switches to Russian, projecting confidently even though she doesn’t feel that way.“Soldier, what is your mission?”

He doesn’t respond.Doesn’t even look at her.It’s like she's not even there.

Sam makes a noise in his throat.He closes his eyes for a second, and then tries again.

“Steve!Steve, get away from him before it’s too late!”

Steve turns and…oh.He looks exhausted, resigned, Atlas pinned down by the weight of it all.She knows just from the look in his eyes that he isn’t going anywhere.A slow, minute shake of his head confirms it.

The rest is quick.Rumlow speaks in Russian, ordering the Winter Soldier to take Steve into custody.Barnes snaps into action.He drags Steve to his feet, gun pressed to the back of his head, and leads him roughly away.Rumlow and the rest of the men follow, retreating with guns raised.The whole time, Sam talks to Steve.

“Fight them, Steve, no matter what happens, fight them!We’re gonna find you, we’re gonna find you and burn their shit _down_!”Sam stands up as they disappear, and he’s yelling with every inch of his body.“Do you hear me, assholes?You’re done!”


	7. Chapter 7

“I saw you die.”

Rumlow, who has removed his ridiculous mask, looks up.Steve is on his knees in the cargo area of the jet, hands and ankles mag-cuffed behind him and chained to the wall.They’re alone.

Steve thought he would be more afraid.This is the man who dominates his nightmares.The one who raped him in so many ways, who dangled Bucky’s life over him with such cruelty.But he isn’t that same man, not anymore; he’s been surgically and very likely chemically altered.Logically, that should make him more frightening, but for some reason…

Steve flexes his wrists against the cuffs.With enough effort, he could break them.Rumlow must know that, but he thinks he still has the other Steve Rogers here.The one simultaneously so hopeful that he could somehow get Bucky to safety and so petrified that they would hurt him before he got the chance.Steve knows better now.He knows the only thing he can do is make sure they die before anyone can use either of them as a weapon ever again - salvation in expiration.Rumlow should be more afraid of him, this time around.Because this Steve?He has nothing left to lose.

“Your buddy Bucky, he didn’t do his job,” Rumlow drawls at last.“Sloppy.”He leans close, close enough for Steve to feel the warmth of his breath.“Like that sweet ass of yours when I’m done with it.”

Steve imagines what it would be like to head-butt him, to feel his nose break and the warm gush of blood splash over both of them.He holds on to that; it’s the only way he can keep his mind from going back in time and paralyzing him.

“Internal decapitation, that’s what he did to me,” Rumlow says.“Usually lethal, but not this time, Cap.Not me.”The hand that takes hold of his jaw is much, much stronger than it was before.Steve is forced to look up at him, into his hateful face.“I was in a halo for a month because of your boy.Because of you.They screwed that thing right into my head.Right into my skin.”

“That must have been terrible,” Steve growls, unable to stop himself.Anger is growing, a hot ball in his chest, and he knows anything he does to displease Rumlow will be taken out on Bucky and on him, in spades, but he still can’t control it.And for once, he feels like there isn't much point to trying.

Rumlow’s jaw jumps.His thumb traces Steve’s lower lip - the gentlest touch he’ll get, he knows.

“What’s this?A bit more life in you this time, Cap.”His voice lowers.“Keep it up.I like a little fight.But you know the result is going to be the same.Especially now that I’ve had a few upgrades.”

Steve holds his eyes.They’re dark, intelligent but empty - like Johann Schmidt’s.

“What are you calling yourself these days?” something makes Steve ask, full of the same reckless bravado as the day he’d kicked in the doors of his own doom in 1945.He feels the same.Like he’s already dead.“Red Skull’s taken and White Skull just doesn’t have the same ring to it.”

Rumlow shows teeth.“Crossbones.”

“Let me tell you something, _Crossbones_ ,” Steve replies, baring his teeth right back.“Youget your face caved in, you lose your filter, you know?So I get angry now.Real angry.This is your warning.If you hurt Bucky - if you even look at him wrong - I will end you.And I won’t feel a trace of guilt.I used to, even the bad people I killed.But not you.Not any of you, not anymore.”

“Mm,” Rumlow hums after a long moment.“You always were good with a speech.”

 

 

 

They're not even twenty minutes out before someone tries.Rumlow is gone; Steve’s alone in the cargo hold listening to the blood in his ears.The anger hasn’t faded.Mostly, he breathes and thinks about what he would do to Rumlow, given the chance.

Footsteps announce an interruption to the violence in his mind.Steve looks up, just a flicker of eyes to size up the danger.Two men, nobodies.They’re armed.

The bigger of the two steps forward.The second man hangs back, gun up, trained right on Steve.He’s the more intelligent of the pair, though not by much, because Steve knows they won’t shoot him.Not anywhere lethal, anyway.And if it isn’t lethal, it isn’t stopping him.

“You know how this goes,” the first man says as he approaches.He reaches for his belt.“You play nice, and nobody gets hurt.” 

This.This again.But he’s had all the time in the world to study people like this, hours of awareness in a body paralyzed by the damage done to its brain.He knows what they want.He knows how to make them think they’re getting it.

“Is that how you think rape works?” Steve growls, low.He feels feral.The chains clink as he shifts, huddling back against the wall.This man, he’ll want to see fear.He’ll want to see Steve trapped, an animal hiding in the back of its den with nowhere to go.But in reality, the closer he is to the wall, the more slack he has on the chains.The more he can move to fight. 

The second man looks nervous.He's young and he doesn’t thirst for pain.Or perhaps he thirsts for a different kind - for true weakness, rather than strength manipulated into weakness.Steve doesn’t know which is sicker.

“Maybe we should just wait until after,” the second man says, eyes flickering back and forth between Steve and the spot in the wall where his bonds are anchored.

_After_.They’re planning something for him, something that will presumably either incapacitate him more than he is currently, or make him more docile.The second man wouldn’t suggest waiting, otherwise.Steve knows the first man is going to ignore the good advice.This man’s greed for pain outweighs caution. 

“He’s not going to cause any trouble,” the man says, edging closer, “or else I’ll go looking for his best pal.You want that, Rogers?” 

Steve gives him what he wants, what he knows these kinds of men like - upturned eyes full of hatred and pain and fear.An expression of helpless resignation.Then he looks away and gives a curt, humiliated shake of his head. 

“Well then.”He drops his fly with a self-satisfied smirk and presents his dick like it’s a goddamn trophy.Steve stays very still, eyes downcast.Smarter men might recognize the tension in his muscles, see the intent in the lines of his body.Smarter men wouldn’t try this at all.But this is not a smart man, and thank God for that.In two more steps the would-be rapist is finally, finally close enough to get what he fucking deserves.He has the gall to say, “Open wide.”

_Some last words to be remembered by._

There isn’t a lot of slack on the leg irons but it’s enough.Steve goes down on his side and hacks the man’s feet out from under him.He hits the floor hard, stunned.It’s tough to get up with his hands tied behind his back but Steve’s done it before, and for all it’s been through, his body obeys.Then Steve is on top of him, his knee on the man’s throat.He presses down, teeth bared.He could break his neck, end it in a second, but he doesn’t want to.He wants to watch him suffocate.

The second man is still by the door, gun raised, eyes wide and face tense with dilemma.

Steve glares at him, daring him to shoot.The other man struggles feebly beneath his weight.He’s not as heavy as he was but it’s still more than enough to pin him down.Steve leans, pressing down harder, watching him purple with the effort of trying to escape and find air. 

When he glances up again, the second man is gone.Wise choice.

It only takes another 45 seconds for the piece of shit underneath him to die.

 

 

“What the _fuck_ , Natasha, _what the fuck was that bullshit about?”_ Sam shouts.He’s so angry that Tony takes a step back, surprised.In contrast, Natasha is eerily calm when she replies.

“You know what it was about.”

“What I know is that _you just stood there_ while Barnes and Steve tried to blow their damn brains out!”

“What?” Tony says in disbelief.When did that happen?That fucking rocket, it trashed the suit and the jet they’d come in and by the time he got free the fight was over.Now they’re in the helicopter, Fine at the helm in pursuit of the Hydra jet, and Tony is trying to determine if he can get the suit fixed enough to fight in the next twenty minutes or not.Their odds aren’t good if he can’t.They aren’t good anyway, and Natasha is bleeding through her field dressing.She alone doesn’t seem to notice.

“You would have let them die,” Sam says, accusing.

“Yes, I would have,” she responds.

“Well, you do you,” he snarls, “but don’t you ever try to stop me again.”

Natasha’s calm snaps. 

“Do you think Steve would survive losing him again?” she demands, voice lashing.“Do you think Barnes should have to keep living this _nightmare_?”

Sam opens his mouth, but he doesn’t have an answer.

“When you’re an assassin you realize that dying on your own terms is gift that most people never get.I wasn’t going to take that from them.Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.”She turns to Tony, eyes hard.“If we catch up with that jet, you tell Fine to shoot it down.”

“Those are our friends on there!” Sam shouts.“We are not shooting them down!”

“This helicopter can’t fly forever.When we run out of gas, we lose them.They’re gone.Hydra will make sure we never find them again.We’ll just have to watch while they use them to do horrible things, spin whatever lies they need.Is that what you think Steve would want?”

Sam knows it isn’t.He’s so frustrated that there are tears in his eyes.He sits down heavily, looking like he’s on the verge of screaming.

After a long, loaded silence, Tony says as firmly as he can, “If I can get the suit running I’ll attempt rescue.If not…”

There is a possibility, however slim, that he can track Barnes the same way Hydra did - by that bullet in his pelvis.But there are so many question marks.What frequency?What range?Will Hydra leave it there, running, or will they deactivate or remove it?Tony can’t guarantee that if they lose that jet, he’ll ever be able to find Barnes and Steve again. 

“If not, we shoot them down,” he finishes, and tries to ignore the bile edging up his throat.

 

 

Rumlow isn’t as casual when he walks in and sees the dead man on the floor.Steve kicked his corpse away, and the body settled spread-eagled by the door, eyes wide and peppered with tiny hemorrhages and his dick still lolling out of his pants.Steve is up against the wall, untouched.Waiting for someone else to try, and in doing so sign their death warrant.

He sees the flicker of worry in the other man’s face.He’s not meant to.Rumlow stands there, trying to reason out how Steve could possibly have killed this man with all four limbs bound and chained, but it’s no mystery _why_ he’s dead.

_Not gonna play so nice this time._

He isn’t.He’s not going to let them lay a finger on his body.He’s going to fight like Sam said.Steve knows they’ll try to force compliance by threatening to hurt Bucky or actually doing it, but they won’t kill him, and it isn’t worse than what they’ll make him do as the Soldier.It isn’t worse than just being forced to _be_ the Soldier.That was what he didn’t understand the first time around.It would have been a mercy for them to kill him, and Steve should have fought them all along even if it meant he had to watch Bucky die.

Every time they activate the Winter Soldier, Bucky dies, anyway.

What Steve needs now is to be in the same room as him, close enough to do what needs to be done.Close enough to end it.The way to get that is to refuse to cooperate.To earn the need for a reminder.

Rumlow looks up at him.Steve meets his gaze, unrepentant.Unconquered.Honey to the bear.Rumlow’s eyes narrow.Then he steps out.

Steve knows he’ll be back.Sure as sunrise in the east, he won’t be able to resist the opportunity for discipline.For control.For _pain_. 

He’ll come for the honey, but he’ll only get the bees, this time.

 

 

 

“Why _did_ you cast your image to me that night?” Thor asks.He’s taking a break from the arduous task of trying to project his consciousness between Asgard and Midgard.So far he’s been able to jump back and forth a few times, but he can’t seem to control where he ends up.

“I didn't think it would work, or I would have been more careful,” Loki shrugs on the other side of the energy barrier.“But it is easier when you try to project to a familiar target.Maybe you should try that.”

“What do I do, just think about a person or a place?” he asks.

“Yes, but more…the feeling,” Loki says, slow and thoughtful.“The aura.” 

Thor knows better than to ask what his _aura_ is like.Loki has limits and tends to growimpatient when it gets too personal.Instead he takes a breath and tries to focus on Darcy.Vanilla and coconut and warmth, something at once very young and very old, the kindest of spirits…

The world blurs and refocuses.He feels dizzy, off-kilter, and for a moment he thinks he failed.But then he sees, clear as a day, a beverage can sitting on a tree stump, lit by a floodlight.A bullet whizzes by it a second later.

“Damn it,” Darcy says.Her voice has a distorted quality to it, like he’s hearing it from underwater.

“You’re getting closer and closer,” Clint encourages.“Try again.Use your other hand to stabilize when you aim.”

He’d promised Thor that he would help teach her how to defend herself.He is a man of his word.Darcy sighs and resets herself, cradling her right hand in her left as she takes aim.She exhales and pulls the trigger.

This time, she hits the right side of the can, and it spins away from the tree stump and lands on the ground.She blinks, as if she had not expected to succeed.

“There you go,” Clint says, grinning.“It’s just practice, practice, practice from here.We’ll pick back up in the morning.”

Darcy nods, and at last looks the tiniest bit proud of herself.Thor wonders whether a smile here, in the projection, would translate into a smile on his face in the dungeons of Asgard.He’ll have to ask Loki.Darcy and Clint pack up and go inside.He follows.

There’s Bruce, pacing in the lab.He looks ill at ease.Try as he might, Thor cannot make any sense of the notes that are spread out across the counter.This is well and truly the domain of Bruce and Tony.

Speaking of which, Tony and the others aren't back yet.Clint doesn’t seem to be worried, but it’s past the 9 o’clock hour, now.That’s later than they’d been last time, though he knows this time Natasha also went to have her cast removed and the blessing given for her to begin walking and training again.

He thinks about Natasha.About the clean scent of the spirits she prefers, the steeliness of her character, but also the softness she hides away.In a blur he’s there.

He doesn’t expect her to be covered in blood.She’s wounded, her hip, thankfully not the same side where she’d been broken before but a significant injury nonetheless.Sam and Tony are there, too, and both look bad.Sam appears to be moments away from a breakdown, and Tony is working feverishly on his battered suit, cursing under his breath.

Something is wrong.Something is very wrong.

There are two other men in the helicopter, but neither of them is Steven or James.With some urgency he thinks of Steve.It’s more difficult than he expects, maybe because he feels a mounting sense of panic, but eventually he seizes on to his presence and he’s in another aircraft looking down.Steve is on the floor at the feet of a man in black and white.He’s chained up and he’s screaming.

Electricity.They’re shocking him.James is there, but he’s blank, watching with detached composure.It’s so incongruent with what Thor knows of him that it is profoundly disturbing.

These must be the people who held Steve and James captive.The ones who turned James into a weapon, stripping his personhood away, and who tortured and disfigured Steve.He does not know how they’ve fallen into their hands again, but it doesn’t matter.Clint and Bruce don’t know anything’s gone wrong and they’re too far away to help.Tony, Natasha, and Sam seem to be close, but they’re hurt, their equipment broken; they cannot possibly win their comrades back.Thor is, quite literally, the only one who can help.

He rips himself away from the projection, gasping and nearly vomiting from the vertigo of crashing back into his body so hard.

“Thor?” Loki asks.He’s uncrossed his arms and is pushing to his feet.“Thor, what is it?” 

All he can manage is, “I have to go!”And then he’s running, sprinting up from the dungeons and rising into the air as soon as he’s able, hurtling towards the Bifrost.

 

 

He’ll get a little honey after all, Rumlow, but it’s a means to an end, a necessary torment.The electricity is better than the burns or the rape or whatever else they’ve used on him before.It hurts, it hurts _so bad_ , but he can take it.

Steve draws stuttering breaths when they let up.The floor of the jet is cool and he focuses on that, the way the metal pulls the burning heat from his skin.

“That’s just a little refresher,” Rumlow drawls.“Believe me, Cap, I wish I could draw this out, but this new attitude of yours, it’s problematic.”

“I thought…you liked it,” he pants.He has to provoke, to get Rumlow to bring Bucky within his reach _._

“Oh, I do, and I would really have enjoyed watching you try to fight the inevitable.But I don’t call all the shots.”He turns toward Bucky.He barks orders at him in Russian.Bucky moves closer, then kneels about ten feet away from Steve.He looks straight ahead, blank and disinterested.Rumlow takes something out of his pocket.It’s a mouthguard.

Steve _hates_ the way Bucky just opens his mouth, lets Rumlow settle the rubber between his teeth.It must show on his face.Rumlow smiles. 

“The flaw in all this?” he says, gesturing at Bucky.“We could only do memory wipes in a few select locations.Not the most convenient when you might need your weapon anywhere in the world, and when said weapon gets less stable and less effective by the day.But they’ve fixed that.”He takes something out of his other pocket.It’s a headpiece of sorts.Rumlow unfolds it and settles it over Bucky’s head.“I can zap you right out of his head every day.Every hour.Every minute.I’m sure there’s a limit to what the serum can fix.”

Before Steve can say anything, he hits a button on a little control pad, the same one that was controlling Bucky’s arm.Bucky jerks and tilts over onto his side, and then he screams.It drills into Steve’s soul, raises the hair on the back of his neck; it’s primal.

_Cryo.Shock.Mission.Debrief.Shock.Cryo._  

The chair he speaks of, they’ve taken it and made it portable and he’s watching them make those lesions in his brain, the ones Dr. Strange had shown them.They’re erasing Bucky right in front of him.Making him like that first day on the freeway. 

_Who the hell is Bucky?_

He _knew_ it would hurt to watch, no matter what they did to him, but this is a pain like nothing he’s ever experienced.The tears that course down his cheeks aren’t acting, nor are the screams that tumble from his own throat. 

“Stop it! _Stop it!_ Bucky!No!”

 

 

 

Thor stops in his tracks.There, standing next to Heimdall, is his father.

“There you are,” Odin says.“We have some matters to discuss, Thor.” 

“This is…this is not a good time,” Thor pleads.It is actually the _worst_ time.

“Nevertheless it is the time we have.”

He looks at Heimdall.The gatekeeper’s gaze is sympathetic, but unyielding.He won’t activate the Bifrost without Odin’s consent.

“Father, my friends on Midgard are in grave danger.I must go to them _now_.”

“You have no need of friends on Midgard.Their battles are not yours.You are the Crown Prince of Asgard, yet Asgard never sees you.Excepting your brother, of course.”

Anger flares in Thor’s chest.His father never cared for his association with Midgard, but he held his tongue because of Jane.Because he knew his son was in love.It is unfathomable to Thor that Odin can think that now that Jane is gone, he will simply forget about everything on her world.Even if the people he loved had not been killed, what is happening on Midgard is unthinkable.He will not sit idly by and let it be overrun by monsters.

“I will not leave them to their fates,” he says, unafraid.“Even if it means I am no longer Crown Prince of Asgard.They would do no less for me.”

“They can do _nothing_ for you.They are mortal.”

“It was you who taught me that a leader is no leader at all if he believes himself to be better than his subjects.Was that just rhetoric?These people are my shield mates, as much as Sif and the Warriors Three.I will fight for them whether you like it or not.”Thor swallows.“Step aside, father, or follow.I do not care which, but I am running out of time.Heimdall?”

Heimdall slots his sword and looks up.Odin doesn’t object. 

“To the Captain?” he asks, voice deep and knowing.

“To the Captain,” Thor nods.The Bifrost flares to life and Thor steps in, and he knows that his father is right behind him.

 

 

 

It stops, finally it stops, and Bucky is on the ground breathing raggedly, muscles twitching.He’s hauled back to his knees by two men.He sways.When Rumlow pulls the headpiece off, there are little burns where it contacted his skin.

He thinks of the halo.Of Rumlow’s complaints about about the pins in his skull.If he ever gets the chance, Steve is going to take the hammer from Clint’s toolkit and pound every nail he can find into Brock Rumlow’s head, one by one, until he dies. 

“Your turn, Cap.”

No.Fuck no.This is what that man in the cargo hold meant, _maybe we should just wait until after,_ until after they fry his brain, erase his identity, mold him into the same kind of slave as Bucky.Once again, it isn’t acting when he starts to struggle against his bonds.Steve has broken the link his leg irons when Rumlow finally makes the mistake he’s been praying for.

“You need a little encouragement to stay still?That wasn’t enough?”

Steve stops, breathing hard.

Rumlow speaks Russian.Bucky staggers to his feet and crosses the cargo hold on shaky legs.With his metal arm, he reaches for the exit hatch and pries it open.Wind screams into the cabin and Steve’s ears pop.Bucky just stands there at the door, the dark night sky framing him.Inches separate him from a 30,000 foot drop.

“Make a move,” Rumlow says over the howl of wind, smug.“He’ll step right out that door at my command.”

He still doesn’t understand.And he still wants to watch Steve give in instead of physically forcing him.He should have ordered Bucky to hold him down, to control him while he put the headpiece on, but that isn’t the kind of show Rumlow wants.It never was.Not in the nightmarish days before the cell, and certainly not now.

“No,” Steve pleads, voice cracking with emotion.“Don’t hurt him.”

“Then comply,” Rumlow orders, close enough to touch because he can’t resist, he can’t fight the siren call of of another human collapsing to his will, “and you’ll be with your Bucky forever.Isn’t that what you want?”

“Yes,” Steve whispers, eyes burning hot with tears.That _is_ what he wants.He tilts his head, offers himself for martyrdom, but it won’t be the way Rumlow imagines.As he lowers the headpiece, Steve gathers every ounce of strength he has.He’s going to need it to go through with this.It’s there, boiling in his chest, trembling in his fingers.It’s there.

Just before the electroshock device settles on his head, Steve lunges.He plows his shoulder into Rumlow, knocking him over.Snaps his cuffs with a shout, and then he _barrels_ toward Bucky.He feels a bullet clip his calf but it’s nothing.Bucky is slow from the electricity and even though he sees what’s happening he can’t get his left arm out in time to stop it.Steve tackles him out the door of the jet, and then they’re falling in air so cold his lungs spasm when he tries to breathe it.

No matter.It will be over soon.

Bucky is tense against him, metal arm hissing, and for a moment Steve thinks he’s going to try to fight him in midair.But Bucky - the Winter Soldier - _whatever_ he is right now, he recognizes the futility of it.He stills.And maybe…maybe he remembers another fall.

Steve holds on to him.It’s dark, he can’t see, he doesn’t know how much more time they have before impact.Before the end. 

“I’m so sorry, Buck,” he says into the sweaty whorl of hair just above his ear.He can smell the singed skin at his temple.“I’m so sorry.I love you.”

And he can’t say it, but he thinks it:

_I guess this is the end of the line._

 

 

 

“Uh, Stark?”Fine’s voice issues from the cockpit.

“Not now!” Tony snaps.He’s _so close_ to rebooting, so close.

“Yes now!” Fine returns, and there’s panic in his voice.“I’ve got a tornado made of fucking rainbows dead ahead.”

“Did he say _rainbows?”_ Natasha says.

“Thor.It’s Thor!” Tony shouts.“Get on the comm, tell him what’s happening, tell him to get after that plane!”

It seems like he already knows, because lightning flickers all around them and thunder shakes the helicopter.Fine curses.

“It’ll be fine, he’s not aiming for us!” Natasha yells over the din.“Hold course!”

 

 

 

His feet touch the earth and he casts out for Steve and James but they’re not in the jet anymore, they’re in the open air, falling, falling from a height that no human can survive except Bruce Banner —

He spins Mjolnir, feels the winds of Midgard respond and lift him, and by the flash of lightning he sees them twined together, waiting for death.

 

 

 

Something hits him and it doesn’t make sense, it’s from the side and it’s not the crushing pain he expected, but then the impact comes and it knocks the wind out of him.Bucky is wrenched from his arms.Steve gropes out blindly, gasping.Grass stiff with frost crunches and melts beneath his fingers.

No.No, they can’t take this from him, from _them._ He tries to call out for Bucky, but he isn’t Bucky, he won’t respond.He has to find him.

He hears movement and voices and he spins, fist raised.The face that greets him takes long seconds to make sense.

Thor. 

“Steven,” he’s saying, “Steven, are you all right?”

“Bucky,” he chokes out.

“James is there, he’s fine, he’s—” Thor stops, processing that Steve spoke.Lightning flashes again and they both see the glint of Bucky’s arm as he struggles to his feet and runs.

“Stop him,” he begs.“He doesn’t know, they wiped his memories.” 

Thor nods and pulls away.Steve lists without the support of his hands, suddenly aware of how _tired_ he is, and that there’s another man he doesn’t know standing there with a white beard and an eye patch.He can’t worry about it now.It isn’t over. 

 

 

 

Tony shoves Dr. Fine bodily from the pilot’s chair.He takes the controls and guides the helicopter down, down to where the ground is scarred by the Bifrost’s intricate patterns.Natasha swore she’d seen Thor in the air with Steve and Barnes.They won’t get a better window to load them up and get the hell out.

He puts down at the edge of the circle with a thud that has Dr. Strange moaning and turning whiter than milk.

“Keep it running!” he shouts at Fine.

“Oh, sure, _now_ you want me to drive,” he gripes, but climbs back into the seat.

Nat and Sam are already out the door.Tony is on their heels.It’s dark, they’re in the middle of fucking _nowhere_ and it’s a new moon, but the lightning flashes, strobe lighting the field they’re in - a soccer field.

“Steve!” Natasha shouts.Tony sees him in the next flash.He’s ahead, running, not seeming to slip on the frosty grass the way Tony does.Tony skids past an armored white-haired man he’s never seen before.One of Thor’s, maybe, by the way he’s dressed; there isn’t time to think about it.They have to get Steve and Barnes and retreat before they lose the chance.

 

 

 

Steve is right.James does not remember.He fights Thor like a man possessed, brutal and efficient but increasingly desperate as he realizes he isn’t a match for a god.Thor wrestles him to the ground.He struggles, breathing sounds of panic and fragmented words in Natasha’s language.He will not be taken conscious.

Thor wishes for Bruce’s sedating elixir.It would be the gentlest.But it’s not an option now.He knows his brain is fragile like Steve’s and he doesn’t want to hit him, yet it seems there’s no other choice.He draws back and knocks him out cold.James goes limp and Thor climbs off him, taking inventory of his aches.His face is bruised and his lip bloody, his ears ringing just so; James is formidable in battle. 

Steve approaches and he’s—

“Steven,” Thor says, stunned.

He’s got Mjolnir in his hand, and he’s lifting it, and when it comes down on the metal arm it flares like a smith’s hammer shaping a blade.The impact flattens the grass all around them and echoes off the metal bleachers on either side of the field.In that one blow, the prosthesis is cleaved from James’s body.

Thor stares at Steve in mute shock.Steve is on his hands and knees, chest heaving.Mjolnir rests handle-up between his palms.That’s how the others find them a minute later.

 

 

 

“What the _fuck,”_ Clint breathes.He had begun to worry when it hit 10:00, and now, at 11:36, they’re rolling in the door and everyone is a fucking mess.

“A little help,” Tony says.Natasha is leaning against him, pale and wobbly.A huge smear of blood is drying on her left hip, soaking her pants all the way down to the knee.He takes Natasha and lifts her straight into his arms.Tony sighs in relief and clutches at his right side as Clint deposits Natasha on the couch.Immediately, the two doctors push him away and start to check her dressing.

“What the hell happened?” Bruce gasps, horrified, as he emerges from the lab.Darcy trails in, too, awakened by the commotion.Without a word, she starts to gather water and snacks for everyone.

“Hydra happened,” Sam replies.He’s got Steve, who is as bloody as Natasha and looks like he can barely stand.Bruce moves forward to help Sam.Behind him, Thor has Barnes, unconscious and conspicuously missing his metal arm.

“How did they know—” 

“Bullet,” Tony says.“The one we left in Barnes.They tagged him like an animal.”

“And you brought him back _here_?” Clint demands, fighting visions of Hydra showing up at his doorstep and murdering them all in their beds.

“They will never find this place,” Thor says, re-emerging from the bedroom without Barnes.“I placed a protection spell on the entire farm.We are invisible for a hundred miles in any direction.”

“That’s why,” Tony said, snapping his fingers.“That’s why they had to come for us at the medical park.We got out of range of the protection spell and they picked up his signal.” 

“So they attacked you there?”

“Yes.”Tony leans heavily on the dining room table.There are beads of sweat at his temples; he’s fighting pain.“It’s a really long story, Clint, and I think we are all beat to hell and back.”

“Really?” Clint exclaims.“You get in trouble, don't call for backup, come home _hours_ late bruised and bleeding, and then try to go to bed without telling me what happened?”He’s full of the kind of irritation borne of the fear of a close call; all his people were out there fighting for their lives while he sat here and ate chicken wings.Very suddenly he understands Steve’s panic attack the other week.He wants to crawl out of his skin.He wants to yell at each and every one of them, while hugging them so tight they can’t breathe.He can’t do that, so he settles for raking his hands through his hair and demanding, “Who’s this guy?”He jabs a finger at the white-haired man with the eye patch.

“Oh,” Thor says.“I have been remiss.Everyone, this is my father, Odin.”

Clint lets out a laugh that’s just shy of hysterical.“Great.Hi.Welcome to my home, All-Father!”He throws his hands up in the air and stalks away to help Darcy.“Make yourself comfortable, if you can find a single inch of the place that these idiots haven’t bled on.”

 

 

 

The sun is rising by the time everyone gets the attention they need.Bruce is the only one awake besides Thor and Odin; he fusses over the flock, checking each of them multiple times until he’s satisfied that their wounds are tended and they’re sleeping soundly.Some of them are only doing so care of Natasha and Steve’s leftover pain medicine.

Thor sighs as he steps out onto the porch.His father is there, sedately resting in one of the adirondack chairs.He collapses into the chair next to him and yawns.The projection took a lot of energy, and his jaw smarts where James landed a blow with his metal fist.

“Is this a good time?” his father asks, with an undercurrent of humor.

Thor manages to feel annoyed and embarrassed at the same time - a frequent state of affairs, when it comes to his interactions with his father.But the normalcy of it keeps it from being too much of one or the other.

“Yes,” he answers.

“Your dealings with your brother,” Odin starts, “are dangerous.”

“Do you think I don’t know that?”

“I think you know, yet you do it anyway.”

“I need his skills.”

“Your mother could teach you.”

Thor shakes his head.“Not everything.”

“Thor, if he learns to communicate beyond that cell, there is no telling what madness he will bring upon us.You have seen this.He brought the Frost Giants to Asgard and the Chitauri to Midgard, and we both have the misfortune of knowing that there are more fearsome things and peoples out there.In my quest for peace among the realms I made many enemies.You mustn’t forget that.”

Thor leans back in his seat, chastened.As bad as the Chitauri invasion was, it was far from the worst the universe had to offer.

“His very nature is that of chaos,” Odin continues, in a softer tone.“For a long time I tried not to see it, and I do believe some of it is outside his control.But I cannot let that blind me, and neither should you.”

“Yet you let your bias against mortals blind you to their worth.”It’s out of his mouth before he can think to control it.

“The universe has had much to say to me this night, when it comes to the worth of mortals,” Odin chuckles, though it is more a sound of sadness than mirth.

He’s talking about Steve, of course.Thor knew he must have seen it.The others had not put it together in the rush to get to safety, thinking Thor was the one to separate the metal arm from James’s body, but he knew otherwise, and so did his father.

“I do not know the situation,” Odin says, “and I confess I do not understand how a mortal in need of rescue one moment can wield Mjolnir in the next.”

Thor can’t help it.The corner of his mouth lifts in a strange smile.He remembers his father helpless in the Odinsleep.He doesn’t care for mortals because for all his might, they remind him that there is still a chance for loss.

“We are all in need of rescue sometimes, father.” 

Odin’s face shows an answering smile, same side of his mouth, and for a moment their resemblance is on full display. 

“If you tell me that he is good and that there was no trickery in what I saw, I will believe you,” he says. 

“He is good and there was no trickery.”Rarely is he as certain as he feels now.

A silence falls.The morning is cold and crisp, the air clean, and Thor realizes he has not been here in the colder months, much.He likes it.

“You have grown here,” Odin says at last.“That is what I wanted when I sent you away.If it isn’t exactly how I wished, I can hardly complain.Nor can I complain about having a son willing to challenge me for the good of Asgard.For the good of all the realms.”

“I never doubt your wisdom,” Thor replies with sincerity, not knowing what else to say.

“A man ceases to be wise when he thinks he knows all there is to know.You have reminded me of that.”He pats Thor’s hand absently, far away for a moment.“I shall have no more to say on your time spent here, or your company.But your brother…”

Thor sighs.He knows his father is right.He doesn’t want to let go of his lessons with Loki, though.It’s been…nice.The most peaceful time spent together with his brother since they were boys, oblivious to power and the other forces at play in the universe.

“I won’t stop visiting him.But I will cease our training, if you think it will keep him from finding trouble.”

_If you think it will delay the inevitable_ , was what he felt like saying.Because with Loki, it seems like it’s always just a matter of time.He doesn’t need to look at his father to know they share the same thought, and the same heaviness of heart at its truth.

 

 

 

It’s a painful week, physically and emotionally.There are teeth gritted in pain, grudges held, and nightmares that are more memory than a sleeping brain’s fabrication.Clint sighs as he surveys his team.

Tony, Bruce, and Dr. Strange are a powder keg kept from exploding only by their common goals.Sam and Natasha aren’t speaking.Clint himself is angry at Thor for training with Loki behind their backs, and gets angrier when Thor looks like a guilty puppy every time they’re in the same room.Barnes is not Barnes, not even the same version of the Soldier they met when he brought Steve home.It goes without saying that Steve is a wreck.

Dr. Strange swears that Barnes will come back, same as he did before.There’s no way to know what he’ll remember.It could be everything, it could be nothing.But the first three days aren’t encouraging; they have to keep him pinned down with Mjolnir.He’s less dangerous without the prosthesis, but not by much.

On the fourth day, he responds to Natasha.He calls her Natalia.Things are a little easier after that.He follows her commands, like when he first arrived. 

On the fifth day, _he_ commands Steve to stop staring at him and eat something, for fuck’s sake.

On the seventh day, he doesn’t try to maim Tony when he looks at what’s left of the arm.

On the tenth day, Steve wakes up with him curled around his back.

It’s day eleven before Natasha and Sam start talking again, haltingly.

Day twelve, Clint grudgingly admits that Thor’s new skills are pretty damned useful, even if he had to acquire them from the absolute worst person. 

Day fourteen, Tony, Bruce, and Strange emerge from the lab with a prototype prosthesis and a neural inhibitor.It’s a sort of reverse cochlear implant, designed to disable Barnes’s hearing if and when anyone tries to activate him.Strange is convinced that it’s only the hearing they need to block; the conditioning is tied to an auditory pathway.Just seeing the movement of lips or reading the words won’t trigger the ingrained response.They’re shocked when Barnes agrees to test that theory, and elated when it turns out that Strange is right.They’re equally shocked when Barnes consents to surgery when they feel everything is ready.

And the surprises just keep coming.In a meeting in the living room, Bruce and Tony present ULTRON to the team.Before they’re even finished explaining, Steve interrupts.

“No.”

Every eye snaps to him.He’s signed to Clint with some regularity, when they’re alone, and Thor let slip that he spoke that night after the Hydra attack, but beyond that, no one has heard his voice in months.

“Oh, hey, he lives,” Tony says, too happy to be annoyed at the objection - for now.

“Let him finish, Steve,” Natasha says.

“Absolutely not.We’re not them.We do this, we turn Hydra’s lies into truth.Never mind that it’s wrong.I won’t.”

“We should at least keep it on the table as a bargaining chip,” she hedges, arms crossed.

Steve actually twitches, a full-body tic, and Barnes is the only one brave or stupid enough to move closer to him.

“Call it what it is,” he says through his teeth.“Coercion.Force with the illusion of choice.” 

Natasha pales, realizing too late that her argument has triggered him.“Steve—”

“No.No, no, no.I couldn’t say it then but you can damn well believe I'm going to say it now, every chance I get.”There’s a collective wince among the group, and Barnes looks like a meat hook has been plunged into his belly.“We’re not doing this,” he continues.“And if you decide you are, you can do it without me.”

“We’re not doing anything without everyone’s agreement,” Clint says.“We’re a united front.” 

“Then what’s the next option?” Bruce asks, his voice a firm indication that the discussion of ULTRON is closed.Tony shoots him a dirty, knowing look.

“We have a god who can go anywhere, anytime, undetected,” Steve says, pointing at Thor.“A pair of world class spies, two of the best brains on the planet,” he’s tallying with his fingers, looking around the room, “a badass with a wing suit and a therapy degree, two ridiculously talented doctors, a political scientist turned astrophysicist, and some guys who might know a thing or two about razing Hydra to the ground since they’ve done it before.And that is seriously understating the skill set under this roof.”His voice is strong, and so is his posture when he stands.“The next option is to use all of that to make the public realize they’re being lied to, and then destroy those helicarriers and Hydra right along with them.”

In the ensuing silence, Clint can’t stop himself from smiling, because Steve - Steve is _back_.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve starts the long, arduous, and very non-linear process of recovery, Bucky has a breakthrough, Sam worries, and Thor notices something strange in his mental wanderings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait. I do my best but am hella busy at work and house hunting on top of it. >_<
> 
> I added the Hydra Trash Party tag, because, well, it should have been there all along.
> 
> Warnings here for mentions of past torture and non-con, Steve being triggered by basically anything, and mild, very consensual sexual content toward the end of the chapter.

Steve’s voice is…

Simply put, Steve’s voice is doing things to him.The memories come faster when he hears him speak.Though there are two versions of him in his mind, Steve’s voice was _always the same_.Maybe it’s stronger now, not robbed by the asthma which he now remembers means bad lungs, lungs that didn’t work how they were supposed to.But maybe it’s not; Steve’s voice might always have been the strongest part of him.When his body was frail, that voice could still crack out of him with the force of a punch.It could start the fight, but never end it.Yes, he remembers that.

A few days in, he goes to Mr. Stark.He holds out the music device, praying that such a bold request won’t earn punishment.Stark looks up from his work.He doesn’t bother to shield it, knowing others won’t understand, except Dr. Banner.He’s right.It’s all senseless lines of mathematics to the Asset.

“Sick of Steve’s dulcet tones already, huh?” he says with a lopsided grin.

The Asset doesn’t know what to say.It’s not that, exactly.It’s just that hearing him is _overwhelming._ It fills his mind with so many things at once that he has to escape from it.

Mr. Stark takes the device from him.“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

“You are happy that he’s talking.Why do you pretend you aren’t?”His own voice crackles out of him, not challenging - curious.Sometimes he does not understand Mr. Stark’s behavior.He doesn’t think he’s alone in that.

That smile stays in place on his face.“Because he tells me things I don’t want to hear.But when you live long enough, you realize that the people who don’t let you get away with things do it because they care about you.”

What is _care?_

Things are easier to define here. _Care_ is the way Darcy brushes and braids Thor’s hair. _Care_ is Thor returning the favor, twisting her long dark hair into intricate designs that make her look like a princess. _Care_ is the way Dr. Banner hovers over all of them, trying to anticipate their needs. _Care_ is Sam and Natalia being kind to one another even though they have disagreed over something big. _Care_ is Steve patiently teaching him sign language, so they can communicate if and when the device they’re going to implant in his brain blocks his hearing.

He isn’t afraid of Mr. Stark working on his arm, or the doctors doing the surgery, because for some strange reason, they _care_.And they’re going to make it so Hydra can never use him again.

“Are you happy he’s talking?” Mr. Stark asks.He does that when he’s fishing for information, the Asset has realized.Makes it seem offhand.Unimportant.He knows the answer; what he really wants is the content of what Steve’s talking _about_.

It is strange that he and Steve _care_ for one another, he thinks.But it’s also strange that Steve cares for him, after he tried to kill him.After he did nothing when they hurt him.Guilt and loathing clutches in his chest.

“Yes,” he says, knowing he must answer.“He’s…stronger.”

Mr. Stark nods.“Strongest man I know.”

They aren’t talking about physical strength.There are many layers to any exchange of words with Mr. Stark.But Steve being stronger is making Mr. Stark stronger, that much is clear.

He hands the music device over.

“There.I put eight albums on there, all different stuff.Report back when you’re done.No rush.Favorite and least favorite songs for each.”He looks thoughtful.“And _why._ ”

That is a more difficult task than he’s previously been given.It’s been a long time since he was allowed the luxury of liking or disliking anything, let alone verbalizing why.He can do it, though.The Asset nods.

“Oh, and I meant to tell you, you can go to Darcy for music, too.She listens to all that newfangled alternative and indie and electropop bullshit that I don’t have time for.”

He doesn’t know what any of that is but it doesn’t really matter.The music coming from Darcy’s room is usually pleasant enough.It made him fall asleep once, completely unprotected.Some kind of hypnosis, no doubt.A powerful weapon.He understands how people could underestimate Darcy, but under this roof they don’t; she has her ways.

The Asset nods and slips away.

 

 

 

Steve rubs the muscles at the base of his neck.They’re tight and sore and the headache pounding in his skull is relentless.He knows he’s overdoing it, but there’s no other option.They’ve had their time to mourn.Now it’s time to plan.

They’ve already started, with the conveniently dead senator that should have been elected Senate President instead of Scumbag Stern.Bucky made it easy for them.They talked openly of killing him in front of Bucky - he was an object to them - and agreed that a regular old hit would do.No elite assassin necessary.They sent someone else.

“Rollins, Jack,” Bucky reports, with clipped precision.

And yes, that makes sense; the month before the attack, Rollins had been absent a few days, supposedly for some family thing, though Steve never quite believed a man that cruel-faced and intense could have a family.

He closes his eyes against the memory of that face, brutal and scarred and working so hard to cause pain that sweat beaded at his temples.All of his former STRIKE teammates had tortured him, the ones who were still alive, anyway, but at least Rollins had never—

_Don’t you fucking start with this Stockholm Syndrome bullshit, Rogers.Man ain’t a saint cause he never stuck his dick in you like the others._

“No,” he says out loud, fighting the flashbacks that have been threatening since the meeting began an hour ago. 

“What?” Sam asks from the other end of the table.He’s the only one left, thankfully.

Something churns the words from deep in his gut.He doesn’t mean to say them, wouldn’t have a month go because he couldn’t, but like the crying, words sometimes come out of him uncontrollably, now.

“Rollins kicked my teeth out.Burnt the stars and stripes into me, too.It took hours.I kept passing out.They’d bring me back with smelling salts, or epinephrine if that didn’t work.”His skin is crawling.It’s out, hanging in the air, made real and alive by his voice.Steve fidgets in the chair, wishing he could unravel his flesh so his bones and nerves could go live in some other body.He reaches for something to salvage it, to ease the dismay on Sam’s face.“Hope he was gentler on the other ninety-year-old.Nice pillow to the face or something.”

“Steve,” is all Sam can say.

He cringes.“I’m sorry.You don’t want to hear that.”

_Nobody wants to hear it, nobody wants to know.Just hold it in.Don’t make it worse for them.It’s you, it’s yours, don’t put it on them._

Sam moves closer.He feels a cautious hand on his shoulder.

“No, Steve, I do want to hear it.I want you to talk about it.”

He looks up into Sam’s face.They had become friends so fast, effortless, like they’d known one another before in some other life.And Sam is so brave; from the first moment, he had been unafraid of who Steve was, unafraid to treat him like a regular person, unafraid to suit up next to super soldiers and gods and metal men in order to do what was right.

“It isn’t fair to put that on you,” Steve refutes.“Or anyone.”

“And it’s fair to expect you to carry it around alone?”He shakes his head.“Don’t do that to yourself.I’m here.We’re all here.”

It hadn’t been bad at first.When they got back he was so caught up in Bucky, in praying that his memories would come back and then in helping him readjust.But now Bucky was doing okay, or some version of it, mostly back to where they’d started before everything that happened at the medical park.Without him to worry about, his own demons began to creep back in.

First how close he’d come to having to endure it again, on the jet.He fought and he won and in the moment he was so alight with the freedom of deciding to die that he didn’t feel the true impact of the situation.In the downtime it sunk in. _You’re never safe_ , it whispers in the back of his mind. _You’ll never be safe again._

Steve thought work was the solution.Throw himself in, work until he’s too tired to get lost in the drift of his thoughts.But work is scattered with land mines like Rollins and he doesn’t have any way to fight that.He doesn’t know how to keep his coping mechanism from becoming a trigger.It may not be possible. 

“There’s…there’s _so much_ ,” he admits, and something loosens inside him.Gives way with the force of acknowledgment.

“I know,” Sam says softly.“You don’t have to unpack it all at once.But if you never unpack it at all, there’s no room for better things.”

That - those words - they’re so _sad_ that it brings tears to his eyes.Of course.What doesn’t, these days?But the thought of never being able to move past this, of carrying it around like a pregnancy that he’ll never birth, letting it weigh at his spine and his eyes and his heart - that’s unbearable.

“Listen,” Sam says, still soft, and gentle, so gentle.“It’s your choice.But I will ask that if something we’re talking about in a meeting is getting to you, you either leave or speak up.You don’t have to sit through that.You didn’t have to sit through forty minutes about a man who tortured you.” 

“Most of the people we’re going to be talking about tortured me,” he says.“If I do that, then I won’t be at any meeting.”

Sam isn’t ready to give up.“Then promise you’ll debrief with me after every meeting.Tell me what was easy, what was hard, anything you want to share.Think you can do that?”

Steve considers it.Sam isn’t asking for details.It’s just a check-in.He can be as blunt or vague as he wants.He knows Sam won’t push him if he says he doesn’t want to talk about it.And if he does, Sam will listen.Maybe he’ll die a little bit inside, like Steve knows he would if the situation was reversed, but Sam knows how to hear terrible things without letting them become a part of him.It was his job before all this.

Steve remembers the comfort he found in work after waking up in 2012.Work made sense.Work was a constant.If he was honest, it was probably the only thing that got him through without losing his mind.Maybe Sam would find comfort in doing his job, too.

“Okay,” he says.“Debrief after every meeting.”

Sam smiles, a little wobbly but real.“All right.Anything else you want to say about Rollins?”

Steve puts his hands palm down on the table.Looks at them.Follows the strange mangled curve of his left pinky, which Dr. Fine had repaired as best he could.

“Rollins is the only member of my old STRIKE team that didn’t rape me,” he says, low.He’s not looking at Sam’s face.He can’t.“Sometimes I catch myself thinking that makes him better than them somehow, kinder, and I get really angry because he still hurt me.He did those things to me after I fought with him, side by side, for the better part of a year.I trusted him to have my back, and I had his.”

He knows Sam will understand that.The bonds forged among a combat unit are some of the most intense connections in the world.The kind of betrayal he’s suffered is unthinkable no matter what, but only another military man can fully grasp how deep it cuts.Or how angry it makes him.

He manages to move his eyes enough to see Sam’s hands, clenched so hard the skin around his knuckles is pale.He takes two breaths through his nose, and then his fingers loosen.

“It’s a survival mechanism, Steve.A way our minds cope with what’s happening to us while trying to keep us alive.It’s really easy to get mixed up about what kindness is when you aren’t being shown any.There is nothing to be ashamed of.” 

Steve nods.He knows that, but it’s nice to hear it from Sam.

“Hey.”Sam’s fingers are warm on his jaw, and he doesn’t resist the prod to look up at him.“You’re really strong, you know.”

He doesn’t feel it.It’s as elusive as safety, these days.

“So are you,” Steve says, and means it.

 

 

 

Clint is surprised when Steve makes his way out to the makeshift gun range.Darcy is already out with him, trying to adjust to a rifle now that she’s mostly got the hang of a handgun.It hasn’t been easy so far and she’s getting frustrated.She’s taking a break and icing her shoulder.

Steve doesn’t saying anything.He just picks up the rifle, lines himself up, and drops all five targets Clint had set up for Darcy in the space of a few breaths.

“Whoa,” Darcy breathes.Clint never shoots in front of her if he can help it, knowing that his accuracy can make others feel inadequate, but in the admittedly short time he’s known Steve, he’s never really seen him fire a gun.He carries one on missions but rarely uses it.The shield was all he ever needed, beyond his own body.

“There are more targets,” something makes him say.“In the tree line.”

Steve glances at him, then at the trees.The targets aren’t far away by Clint’s standards, but for most they’re a challenge. 

“Bucky’s the sniper, not me,” Steve says.But he’s checking how many rounds are left in the gun.

“You could hit that with the shield.”

“Probably,” he acknowledges, brusque.It _burns_ him that someone else has the shield, the same way it would burn Clint if someone took his bow.

“Whoever you’re angry at, picture their face on the target,” Clint says.

A grim smile tugs at the right corner of Steve’s mouth.“Does that really help?”

“I think it does,” Darcy replies.“I’ve shot Alexander Pierce eight times.And my high school gym teacher who used to tell me I was fat.”

Steve nods.“Both very deserving.”

“Try it,” Clint prods.Honest to God, he really just wants to know if Steve can do it.

He sighs, shoulders the gun again, and aims for the closest target.He takes his time.Evens out his breathing.

“Rollins,” he says, and squeezes the trigger.The target swings wildly in the tree; he hit it.

“Hell yeah!” Darcy cheers, pumping a fist in the air.

Steve isn’t done.He swivels, sights another target, and expels another breath.

“Rumlow.”

_Crack_.Another target hit.

“Selby.”

_Crack._

“Patterson.”

_Crack._

“Nguyen.”

_Crack._

Clint isn’t curious anymore.He’s a little ill.He has a good idea of who these people are, what they did to him; it’s so much more than anger that drove him out here to play with guns.Yet Steve is dead-eyed while he shoots, almost zen.There’s only one target left, the furthest one; even Clint has to concentrate to hit it.

“Pierce,” Steve says.

_Crack._

He misses.

“Fuck.”

Clint has literally never heard Steve say that word, and he says it with feeling.He can’t keep from smiling.Secretly, he likes disinhibited Steve, though he sincerely wishes he never had to meet him. 

“That’s a hard one,” Clint says.“Don’t sweat it.”

“I’ll get it eventually.”He lowers the gun and rolls his shoulders a bit.He doesn’t look relieved, exactly, but some of the intensity has abated.“You have more targets for Darcy?”

“Mercy,” she says, holding up her hands.

“Just one more.I think I can help.”He smiles at her, and that’s enough to get anybody to do anything, these days.She pushes to her feet and accepts the rifle.“You’ll hit the target, I swear,” Steve says.

Darcy isn’t entirely convinced, but she holds out a hand for more bullets.As she reloads, Clint jogs out and resets the easier targets.Once he’s back in a safe spot, she lifts the rifle and positions herself the way Clint taught her.Her stance looks good to him; he doesn’t know why she keeps missing.Steve makes a few tweaks - a lift of the elbow here, a slant of the spine there, minor adjustment of the scope - and then he nods and steps back.

“Try now.” 

She squeezes the trigger and the middle target goes down.Darcy makes a combination surprised and happy noise and does a little dance.

“I hit it!”She skips off to reset the target and check her accuracy.

“How’d you do that?” Clint asks Steve. 

That half smile touches his lips again, a little softer this time.“I was Darcy’s size when I learned to shoot in Basic.”

“Wait, you went through Basic _before_ the serum?”

Steve turns to him looking perplexed.“Yeah.”

Clint has seen the before and after pictures, same as everyone else.Read the books, but they gloss over everything before Project Rebirth.Steve never talks about it.Never really talks about _himself._ Tony talks about himself enough for all of them; he makes it easy to hide, if you want to.

For some reason he always thought Steve got his military training after the serum.How could someone with asthma and flat feet and scoliosis and hypertension and a heart murmur survive Basic Training, let alone be selected for a special program?

“I thought it was after.”

He shakes his blond head.“How would they have known if I’d make a good soldier if they waited until after?”For a moment he’s far away, remembering.“I wasn’t much good for running or strength but I was a good shot.Not like Bucky, but decent.And I never gave up.I found ways to do things I shouldn’t have been able to do, same as I had my whole life.The others hated me for it.This sickly little queer art student, thinking he belonged there with them.” 

“You did belong there,” Darcy says, somehow able to ignore the slip in his speech that he doesn’t seem to know he’s made. _Queer._ Nothing surprises Clint, hasn’t in a long while, but he’s a little thrown by that word.

“It was strange,” Steve goes on.“I ended up saving a few of them, out in the field.They never knew what to say.”

Clint snorts.“Thank you.”

“Some of ‘em were big enough for that.Not all of them.”

“People got nerve,” he commiserates.

He shrugs and looks up at Darcy.“Keep practicing.You’ll get it.”

Darcy nods.“So will you.”

He looks out at the one target he missed. “You’re damn right I will.”Then he turns and walks back toward the house.

There’s a moment of loaded silence between them, watching him go.Then Clint says, without looking over at Darcy, “Do you think he meant it like… _weird_?”

“No,” she replies immediately.“I think he meant like _not straight_.”

Yeah, that’s kinda what Clint thinks, too.

“He didn’t realize he said it.”

“Nope.”

“Then _we’re_ not saying anything.”

“Nope,” she agrees.

“Okay.”

“Okay.”She nods and lifts the rifle.“Let’s shoot things.”

 

 

 

Sign language has been difficult for him to learn, especially with only one hand.He’s got the alphabet down now, but actual vocabulary is more troublesome.Steve says it’s because the alphabet has the benefit of repetition and the song he’s known forever to cement it into his memory.The other signs, they’re all new, and it’s using slightly different parts of his brain.Parts that may be a little more damaged than the auditory ones.After all, if they controlled him by voice, they’d have wanted that part of his brain to stay functional.

“You never took notes in school,” Steve said, trying to explain it to him.“If you listened, you remembered it.I hated you for it a little bit.I couldn’t hear half the time and if I didn’t write down what I _could_ hear, it was as good as gone.”He shakes his head.

The Asset thinks he can remember it.A slight blond boy, always having to move closer to the front of the classroom so he could hear.A healthier boy, dark-haired, reluctant to move forward where the instructor could see his blank pages.That second boy always moved, though.Always, because without Steve, he got…

_Bored_.

He doesn’t remember what that is, or why it was undesirable.

Steve goes on.“This, you have to _do_.You have to learn movements instead of sounds.I think they call it kinesthetic learning.Like learning to shoot,” he says.“You have to figure it out with your body, but once you do, it stays.”

He saw Steve out shooting today with Clint and Darcy.Something did not seem right, and now he understands what it was.

“You weren’t good with a rifle at a distance,” he blurts.

Steve blinks, then smiles.“No, I wasn’t.” 

“Not patient enough.”There’s a palpable annoyance in his chest and he doesn’t know why.

“Never have been,” Steve agrees mildly.

“You hit most of those targets today,” the Asset says.“You learned.”

Something strange flickers in Steve’s face.“I did,” he murmurs.“Now come on.Let’s review tonight’s list.”

Steve is a good teacher.He breaks the lessons up into topics, all related to a common theme, and once they’ve reviewed the words, they have short, simple conversations.More often than not, the Asset cannot remember the sign he wants and cheats by spelling it out.Steve frowns and purses his lips, but lets him finish.Then he makes him practice the correct signs.It does help; the more he practices, the more he's able to retain, but he isn’t sure he’ll ever be as good at it as Steve or Clint.Particularly because he’s supposed to be emotive; hand movements can only convey so much force or tone or inflection.His face has spent years in practiced blankness.It’s hard to consciously make it do anything else.

As they’re winding down, he takes a risk.He drilled this phrase into his memory because he needs to know, and he finally feels brave enough to ask.He signs carefully.

_Who am I?_

Steve’s glance jumps from his hands to his eyes in record time.His eyebrows climb practically into his hair as he spells with his hands, indicating a question.

_B-U-C-K-Y?_

Yes, Bucky.That name Steve called him on the street and the helicarrier, the one that jarred him, made him itch.The Asset nods.

Steve exhales a shaky breath.“Let me…let me get something,” he says.He pushes off the bed - they sit across from one another on the bed during these lessons, close enough for knees to touch so Steve can reach out and guide him if he needs to, and it feels _good_ , good to be touched, sometimes he makes mistakes on purpose but he really shouldn’t -

Steve is out of the room, but his mind keeps going.What if Steve finds out he isn’t trying as hard as he should?Would he be angry?

_Of course not, he isn’t even angry that you let those monsters torture and rape him._

He knows.He thought, initially, that he’d at least saved Steve from _something_ , but he knows that he was wrong. 

_He isn’t angry that YOU laid him at their feet, that YOU stopped him from saving all those people.He doesn’t know how to be angry at Bucky._

Who _is_ Bucky, that he deserves such thoughtless absolution?It gnaws at him, same as it has since the memories started to come back after the abduction at the medical park.The Crown isn’t as effective as the Chair and he’s thankful for that.But now the brief peace from all the questions is gone and he fears the answer to this question as much as he needs it.

Steve returns with a few folders and Dr. Banner’s tablet.He sits across from Bucky, a little further back so he can spread things out between them.His movements are measured.Nervous.He realizes that Steve has wanted to answer this question for a long time.And also that he didn’t force the information on him.He does not want to _program_ him to be Bucky.

The fear in his gut eases.Beneath Steve’s broad hand is an ancient photograph, sepia-toned.A family.A man and a woman, both dark-haired, and three children.Two girls and one boy.The boy is the oldest, maybe five, dressed in a shabby suit.The girls are toddlers.They have curly hair, but the boy’s is straight, greased back out of his face.

Steve points to the boy.His voice is trembling when he starts.

“You were born on March 10, 1917.Your parents were George and Winifred Barnes.They were kind, caring people.They named you James Buchanan Barnes.I don’t know when they started calling you Bucky, but it was before I met you.”

_James Buchanan Barnes_.He rolls the names around in his mind.They feel…not as familiar as he or Steve wants them to be.

“Your sisters were Rebecca and Esther.You loved them very much.Rebecca was sweet.Esther was a terror.You tried to fix me up with Becca.”A tiny smile curves his lips.“But Esther was more my type.”

“Because _you_ were a terror.”If terror could be defined as a person who refused to accept how biology and society defined them.This he remembers, the way his lungs remember to breathe air without his conscious input.

Steve nods and pulls out another photograph.There are only two people in this one.His eyes are drawn to the petite but strong-looking woman with light hair and eyes and freckles he can see even in the low-quality image.She’s not what everyone would call beautiful, but she is _pretty_ , moreso for the straightness of her spine and the set of her shoulders.Kind-faced, yet not a woman to cross.

The boy next to her is—

_Steve_.

He’s tiny, skin and bones, straw hair cowlicked in spite of the woman’s best efforts.He stands next to her on knobby knees.Even though there’s no color in the picture he can see that he’s pale, sickly, not the size he should be for his age.In spite of that he stands like the woman who must be his mother, back straight and shoulders proud, head up, eyes bright.

_Steve_.

“That’s me and my ma.Her name was Sarah.”Steve’s eyes are fond and still sad, somehow, for all the time that’s passed.He _feels_ the time in these pictures.

“It’s 2014,” the Asset murmurs, unable to reconcile the obvious age of the photographs with his own appearance.“How could I have been born a century ago?”It terrifies him, the sudden knowledge that Hydra might have stolen _a hundred years_ from him.Yes, they froze him between missions, and rarely bothered to orient him to time or place or _anything_ when he woke, but had he been killing that long?His chest is tight.

“We’re special cases,” Steve says, fingers reverently tucking the two photographs away.“We were experimented on.Same time, different places and people and agendas.I consented to it.You didn’t.But the end result is that we’ve survived more than anyone ought to.”He eases another picture out of the folder.This one is cracked but still whole.Apt, since he can see that it’s of Steve and the dark-haired boy, a few years older.“And of course there’s the ice.We both spent a lot of time frozen.So yeah, it’s been a century, but we ain’t been awake to live most of it.”He touches the photograph with his knuckles.

He knows the dull ache of cold, the way it hurts at first but then just bears you away into twilight.An unexpected sadness wells up in him that Steve knows that, too.Why would they freeze Steve?

“I don’t know when I met you,” he continues.“You were always there, as far back as I can remember.The brother I never had, my best friend.”

The Asset claws into the recesses of his mind, tries to drag forth the youngest image of that frail blond boy.There are only snippets and they slip through his fingers like goldfish, slippery, bright shining flashes.

“You were always sick,” is what he can offer.

Steve nods.“All the time.Bad lungs, bad heart, bad everything.”

The Asset shakes his head.No.Not bad everything.“Good eyes,” he says.“Good soul.Good brain.”He considers that and frowns.“I think.”

Steve’s smile is bigger this time, soft and pliant.“My ma used to say maybe all that oxygen deprivation from the asthma accounted for how dumb I could act sometimes.”He reaches out and touches the pulse point at Bucky’s wrist, light, undemanding.“We grew up together, Bucky.We were best friends, spent every waking moment together if we could.Got into more trouble than either of our mothers deserved.”Steve looks up, nakedly earnest.“You being there kept me alive even though my body tried pretty hard to kill me.”

None of it feels like a lie.His pulse leaps under Steve’s touch, thudding into his fingerprints.It feels _so good_ to be touched.His eyes, his voice, his hands, _anything_.If it was like this back then, he very much understands why he and Steve were lovers. 

He thinks maybe Steve being here kept him alive, even though his _mind_ is trying hard to kill him.He slides his hand back, dares to loosely clasp the other man’s hand.Something intentional.

Steve swallows and holds on.

“My Ma died when I was seventeen.You convinced your parents to let me sleep on the couch cushions on the floor of your room until we finished school and could get a place of our own.We…”He chews his lip.“That’s how it was, at first, but that’s not how it stayed.They let us have wine at Christmas that year and we all had too much and I kissed Esther.You were so mad at me.I thought it was because I betrayed you by kissing your sister, but really, it was because I kissed her instead of you.I didn’t know it was an option.If I had, I sure wouldn’t have waited so long.”

There’s a frisson of memory, spindly limbs, cold fingers and toes but a very hot mouth, the medicinal but surprisingly masculine scent of him, abject terror at the creak of a bedspring or a floorboard.No one ever caught them, though.He thinks he would remember _that_.

“Once we moved out, it was…” he gives a soft chuckle, “well, it wasn’t lifestyles of the rich and famous, but we got by.I think we were happy.I was, anyway.You worried about keeping up appearances.Thought you had to protect us from people who might want to hurt us for being queer.People weren’t too keen on it back then.” 

“And now?” the Asset asks.

Steve sighs.“It’s more accepted, but people will always find reasons to hate one another.”

He absorbs that.Steve is right, of course.After a moment Steve reaches for the tablet and pulls something up.He hands it over.There are black and white images of the aftermath of a battle, airplanes with sunbursts on the sides, belching columns of smoke.Headlines proclaiming 1500 dead.There’s a twinge behind his sternum, some sobering feeling that still exists; this was when their lives changed.

“Things were okay until Pearl Harbor.That was in December of 1941.There had been a war going on overseas for a few years but we were out of it until then.The Japanese bombed us and war was declared.The Army wouldn’t have me no matter how many times I tried, but you…”

This hurts Steve, even now.

“They drafted you in 1942.You went, of course.I was proud of you, so proud, but also so scared.I didn’t know how to exist without you.”He looks away for a moment, out into the late autumn dusk beyond the window.“It sounds pretty pathetic, doesn’t it.”

“No.”He says it through his teeth, more a growl than he intends, but nothing about Steve is pathetic.Nothing.

He shrugs.“You were a good shot and a natural leader.They took the time to train you and advance your rank instead of sending you right to the front, so I got to see you sometimes when they gave you leave.But eventually the time came for you to ship out.That was the night I met Abraham Erskine.You went to Italy with the 107th, and I went to Camp Lehigh with the SSR.”

“Project Rebirth,” he whispers.Steve’s eyes widen with shock.“Zola…”and he shudders, full body recoils from the name and the pain, _why is that still fresh_ but he can’t recall the simple pictures Steve is painting beyond the edges, puzzles with all the middle pieces ripped out—

He drags a breath and forces the words.“Zola talked about Erskine and that project _constantly_.I don’t know if he knew I was awake enough to hear him.I don't know if he cared.”

“I was that project,” Steve says.

He can feel the blood draining from his face.“You…you let them…”Oh, God.

Steve’s hand tightens around his.“No, Bucky, they never hurt me.Erskine was a good man.It wasn’t like what Zola did to you.The procedure…well, that hurt.But it was quick.A few minutes, nothing more.And when I came out of there, I was…”He waves his free hand at himself.

“Not sick anymore.”

Emotion clogs his throat for a moment.“It was the first time I ever knew what being alive was _supposed_ to feel like.”

“They made you—” he gestures with his one hand like Steve did, breaking their contact, frustrated by the turn of conversation without fully understanding why, “and sent you off to war?”

_An Asset just like me.A weapon._

That’s why.

“Not right away.They never expected it to work, so when it did, they didn’t know what to do with me.I was seen as an investment, an achievement.”Steve’s face twists.“A showpiece.All I wanted was to go to war, to help our boys fight and win and come home.They sent me on tour with the USO instead.They used me to sell war bonds.”

“Propaganda.”

“Yes.And I did it as well as I could, because it was all I was allowed to do.”

“Money is a loaded gun,” the Asset murmurs.Someone used to say that.He doesn’t know who, but they were right.Money built super soldiers, willing or otherwise.Money and science.

“Mm,” Steve agrees.When he speaks again his voice is jaunty and fake.“Every bond you buy is a bullet in the barrel of your best guy’s gun.”

Assets, both.Just used differently.It curdles in his belly.

“They finally sent us on tour in Europe in 1943.The soldiers loved the girls, hated me.I should have expected that.I made it to Italy and I found out that most of your regiment had been captured or killed.I just couldn’t accept…”he trails off and exhales.“They knew where the survivors were being held but they were just going to leave you.Too risky, too far into enemy territory to be worth the excursion.You can imagine how well I took that.”

And he can, from the scraps he’s assembling in his mind.

“I went AWOL.None of it was worth if it I couldn’t _help._ That’s why I did it, that’s why I let them experiment on me.So I wouldn’t be useless anymore.And there I was, big as a damn house and strong enough to lift one, and they had me doing vaudeville while good men sat in cells as prisoners of war.”

“You weren’t useless.”It seems very important to argue that.It’s a bone-deep urge, one he can’t deny.

Steve gives him a look, and it’s jarring in its familiarity.He’s seen it before on a narrower face.It eases away, though.“I found you.I knew you weren’t dead and I found you.”

“You found me.”Yes. _Yes_.The bedroom dissolves away and he can see it, smell it, feel his serial number on his lips.They tortured him for weeks, injecting him with things that _burned_ , hurting him with clinical, escalating cruelty just to see if and how he healed.They tried to make him forget who he was.But he clung on, refusing to yield.By the time Steve found him, the only things left were a softly degrading picture of Steve in his mind, all eyes and lips, and his name and his serial number. _James Buchanan Barnes, 32557038._

“Bucky?” he says, gentle.He’s been quiet for too long, lost to recollection.

“I thought I died.That you had, too, without me there to take care of you, flu or pneumonia or some jerk that didn't know when to stop punching.”The words rush from him in a torrent, like another mind has hatched within his own.“You were big because in death…in heaven you got to be healthy.I thought you were there to bring me to the other side.”

Steve’s eyes are glassy.He reaches out, hesitant, but the Asset - _Bucky_ , he’s Bucky, whatever’s left of him, it’s so clear now— he leans into the offered touch.Just like he had then, when Steve pulled him off the table.It’s all coming back.

“I don’t think I believe in heaven anymore,” Steve says.He looks sad and distant and his face is still too thin, the scars fleshy pink against his fair skin, but it’s better than when they first arrived.The Asset - _Bucky_ , goddamnit - reaches out to mirror the comfort he offered.Steve’s eyes drift closed at the touch and he breathes through parted lips. 

He can’t stop himself.He leans forward to kiss him.There’s no force to it, just a tentative brush of lips, but Steve’s response is instantaneous.He lifts his chin, pressing into the contact.

Oh, how he had wanted this.After Steve rescued him, he wanted to kiss him so badly, relearn his angles, get lost in the bliss two bodies could create because he needed to remember that there was an opposite to pain.He wants to give that to Steve.Wants it so bad that it hurts.When Steve is brave enough to offer the tip of his tongue, grazing gently against his, Bucky’s mind whites out.And it _is_ Bucky’s mind, because the Asset - these are not his wants.

He doesn’t realize he’s crept forward, over the pictures and documents spread across the bed and Steve himself, until he feels Steve go rigid underneath him.Steve pulls back from the kiss with a choked breath.He’s ghostly pale, eyes squeezed shut.

It takes him a moment but Bucky understands.He’s pushed between his thighs, pinned him down.He’s trapped Steve in the most vulnerable of positions, one that’s been used to debase and humiliate him, and he can’t scramble back fast enough, nauseous with guilt.

“Sorry, I'm so sorry, _please_ ,” he begs, eyes blurry with tears.How could he do that, how could he fuck up so badly?Is he insane or just stupid?

Steve turns onto his side and tries to breathe.But he reaches a hand out, just touching the tips of his fingers to Bucky’s, while he rides out the panic.That alone keeps him from falling apart.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Steve manages after long minutes of semi-controlled breathing and pressing his face into the mattress.His voice sounds raw like he’s been screaming.“Bucky, it’s okay.”

“No it’s not.”None of this is okay.It’s hitting him, everything they did to him, everything they did to _Steve._ The things he endured, for _him_.

Steve pulls him down to the comforter so they’re face to face.His hands smooth through Bucky’s hair.

“I want you,” he says, “but it…it’s going to take a while, understand?”

“How can you want me?”His heart feels shredded, his head on the verge of explosion.“I let them hurt you.I sat there and watched.”The pain of this is unbearable, worse than anything Zola or Pierce ever did to him.

“I didn’t look for you after you fell,” Steve says, chin set in typical stubbornness, but it’s covering the same kind of profound grief.“So it was no less than I deserved.” 

His mind screams _no_ , _no,_ both at the reminder of the fall and its aftermath, the disemboweling horror of waking up on Zola’s table again, and Steve thinking he deserved any of that.Bucky opens his mouth to — God, he doesn’t know, to scream at him?To comfort him?To tell him he’s the biggest fucking fool he’s ever known? 

What comes out is, “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Steve responds immediately, with enough righteous passion that The Asset Turned Bucky believes him.“No amount of guilt changes anything.We’re gonna heap that on the Hydra bonfire with everything else and when the time comes we’re gonna light that son of a bitch up and watch it burn.You hear me?”

Loud and fucking _clear._ Steve’s words light _him_ up, and it’s like whiplash, to be so high and low and high again in so little time, but all he wants to do is kiss him, find that pleasant roar of nothingness and embrace it until he’s obliterated.

“Can I—”

“ _Yes_.” 

And they kiss, side by side so Steve doesn’t feel trapped, pictures of their old lives on the bed between them, until someone knocks on the door and says dinner is ready.

 

 

 

“Okay.Morning meeting.Commence,” Clint says.He’s bleary-eyed and clutching a cup of coffee like he is every morning, but they all know that if he’s talking, he’s with them.They’ve been doing this every morning to review plans, progress, and whatever information Thor has been able to glean in his projections.

People are quiet, sipping their respective morning beverages.Bruce chuckles to himself.This is not a team of morning people, except maybe Sam and Steve.Steve is currently sucking down the smoothie Sam made him like it’s the single greatest thing he’s ever had, and nobody’s mad when he gets up to pour himself the leftovers from the blender.

“I’ll start.Surgery tomorrow,” Bruce says, nodding at Barnes.

“We’re all set up?” Clint asks.

“The last of the equipment should arrive today,” Dr. Fine says.

“Tony, you’re ready?”

Natasha elbows him.He’s falling asleep, approaching that point where biological need overpowers the combination of mania and chronic insomnia.

“Mm,” he groans.“Yes.One robot arm coming right up.”

“It’s not a robot arm, it’s a prosthesis,” Steve says, in the mildest of annoyed tones.

Barnes touches his knee.“It’s okay if he calls it a robot arm.”

Steve shrugs and goes back to his smoothie.Tony is too tired to gloat.

“Doc Strange, Doc Fine, you guys are ready?”

“As we’re going to be,” Strange says, nodding.Fine will be doing the actual neurosurgery, with Strange right there to direct him, and he’ll also remove the bullet in Barnes’s pelvis so he can’t be tracked.Bruce will assist Tony with the arm. 

“And, uh,” Clint gestures at Barnes.

“Bucky,” the dark-haired man says, utterly calm.

“Right.”Clint hides a smile in his coffee mug, and Bruce has to do the same.He and Steve have made some real progress in the last few weeks.“Bucky.Are you still on board with this?”

“You can say no,” Natasha reminds him.“Anytime you want, you can say no.”

“I want the surgery.”His gaze and his voice are unwavering.“And the arm.I’m ready.”

“Okay.Surgery tomorrow, nine am.” Tony makes a plaintive sound.Darcy laughs and the doctors roll their eyes.Clint is merciful, though.“Fine, ten.Nat?Anything to report on the senator?”

“I’ve got airline itineraries, a quarter million dollar wire transfer to Rollins’s offshore account, and leads on at least three people who don’t believe the senator’s death was natural.I’ll try contacting them today.”

“Wait,” Bucky says, frowning.“They _paid_ this man to kill the senator?”

“Seems like it,” she nods.

He says something in Russian, and Natasha’s lips curve into a nasty smile.She doesn’t translate or say anything in return; it seems like nothing is needed.She just glances at Clint like it never happened 

“Perfect,” he nods, knowing they’ll get no more.“Thor?”

“They have a task force devoted to killing us.”

“No shocker there,” Tony mutters.

“The interesting part is that they believe Steven and Bucky to be dead.”

“Well, the last they saw of them was a crater in the ground and a crushed metal appendage after they’d fallen 30,000 feet,” Sam says, jaw twitching.“That’s what I’d think.”

“Pierce strikes me as the type who would want proof, though,” Steve replies.“Bodies.”

“They knew we were there.They probably assumed we took the bodies,” Sam points out.

“Let them think that.There are advantages to being dead.” 

All eyes turn to Bucky for the third time.This is the most he’s talked in any meeting so far.Bruce has to admit that the man can be pretty intimidating at times; currently he looks like he’d gladly slit the throat of anyone with the slightest inkling of sympathy for Hydra.The surprise is that Steve looks the same way.Bruce notices Clint and Sam watching him, as well.Natasha told him that Steve was a bit…heavy-handed in the last fight.Not that he blames him.And like _he_ has any room to talk about losing control. 

Steve’s eyes narrow.“Who’s on this task force?”

Thor rattles off a few names.They’re meaningless to Bruce, since he never worked for SHIELD proper like most of them, but Steve knows them.Natasha and Clint, too.

“Who the hell are Wanda and Pietro Maximoff?” Clint asks.“I was with SHIELD the longest and I’ve never heard of them.”

“Me either,” Natasha says with a frown.

“I’ll seek more information today,” Thor assures them.

“Anything else?” Clint asks.

“Their primary target is Tony.”

“Naturally,” the man in question intones, unconcerned.

“They haven’t been able to override your control of the helicarrier navigation systems,” Thor goes on.“They want you, and once they have you they plan to force you to reverse the programming and take the fall for all of it.”

“Good luck,” Darcy says, inspecting her cuticles.

“We shouldn’t underestimate them,” Bruce speaks up, bothered by their nonchalance.“They pulled a pretty big one over on us already.If we get comfortable they might be able to do it again.We can’t afford to be casual about this.”

Clint sets his empty mug down.“Bruce is right.Relaxation is not an option.”

“Agreed,” Steve says.“We need to prioritize and speed up the timeline.Priority one, destroy those helicarriers before they can use them to hurt anyone else.Priority two, finish the data dump Natasha started.That will do the work of incriminating the right people on its own, we can fill in the details later.Priority three, round up all the human stains that made this happen.”

“And do what with them?” Sam asks, looking at him sideways.

“Medieval torture?” Steve suggests.He’s joking, but there’s a glint in his eyes.

“I need Alexander Pierce for the data dump.Or his retinal scan, anyway,” Natasha says.“I have Nick’s, but you need two and I’m positive Pierce will have disabled anyone else’s.”

“I know where he lives,” Bucky says.“And he’s arrogant enough to have gone back there if he thinks I’m dead.Twelve hours is all I need.”

Clint shakes his head.“Surgery first.Then we’ll talk about that.”

Barnes accepts that with a terse nod.Clint takes a breath.

“We’ll also talk about Laura and the kids coming home.”There are murmurs of assent all around.“Okay.Everyone knows what they’re doing today?”More nods.Clint taps his mug like a gavel.“Adjourned.”

 

 

 

Sam catches her arm as she turns to go.Natasha looks back at the living room and is surprised to see that everyone is still there.Everyone except Steve and Barnes, who went out the front door as soon as the meeting ended, presumably to do something the doctors would frown upon.She surveys them and feels curiously defensive.

“What is this?”

“One more item to discuss,” Clint replies, with the grace to look guilty.

“Without Steve and Bucky?” she demands.She looks at Sam; he won’t meet her eyes.

“Well, some of us have concerns.”

Natasha eases back down to the dining room chair, back very straight.She knows what this is about.“Okay,” she says.The way they’re looking at her tells her that she’s already failing to hide the strange mama bear protectiveness that’s been brewing inside her the last few weeks.

“So, uh,” Sam says, still not looking at her.“Steve is angry.Like, really angry.”

“Is that a deal breaker these days?” Bruce says around a smirk.Tony snorts and Thor smiles.Natasha is suddenly very thankful for Bruce’s presence.Not that she isn’t always, but he’s been rock solid this whole time when they’re all mired in quicksand.

“No,” Sam amends.“I think we’re all angry, but several of us have noticed things or raised concerns since he’s been getting better, and I just wanted to open up some dialogue.Maybe talk about deescalation, crisis intervention, that kind of thing, so if he…” 

“If he loses his shit out in the field, we can talk Captain America down with I-statements and yoga breathing and the musical stylings of Jack Johnson?” Tony fills in.

“Not helping, Tony,” Clint prods, in what is unmistakably a Dad Voice.“We’ve all seen that he’s different.”

“Of course he’s different, he’s brain injured,” Dr. Strange says, rollings his eyes.“How many times do I have to say a frontal lobe insult can change a person’s entire personality?Or at the very least, remove their filters?”

“That’s true,” Sam says diplomatically.“He’s also grieving.”

Natasha takes a deep breath through her nose before she talks.It’s the only way she won’t yell at them.

“Have you forgotten what he went through?”

“No, I haven’t,” Sam fires back.“He’s actually starting to talk about it and it ain’t pretty.”

“Then why shouldn’t he be angry?Because he’s Captain America?That’s _bullshit._ ”

“He always tries so hard not to kill people and you said yourself the other day he took out a bunch of those agents without a second thought,” Clint says.“You were concerned.”

“Yeah, for five minutes.But then I thought to myself, _I_ want to kill them.I know I’m not the only one.If there was ever a time it was justified, it’s now.”

“Here, here,” Tony mutters.

“All I want,” Sam says, measured, “is to make sure he doesn’t end up doing anything he regrets.”

“And you’re a really good friend and teammate for that,” Bruce affirms.

“No disputing that, but eradicating Hydra has basically been his life’s work.He’s pissed that they’re still here, he’s pissed that they killed so many people, he’s pissed that they're fucking _winning_ right now, and he’s furious about what they did to his best friend and all the rest of us.That’s to say nothing about how fucking angry you get after you start to process that people tortured you,” Tony bites off. “If he wants to kill a bunch of Hydra scumbags I will line them up for him, and pick off the runners.”

“Even Hydra scumbags are _people_ ,” Sam argues.

“Yeah, in the same way Hitler was a person,” Darcy says under her breath.

“Who’s Hitler?” Thor asks.

“That is an absolutely terrible story for another day,” Bruce replies, not missing a beat.

“None of you think Steve would feel guilty?” Sam demands.

“I’m sure there are a million things he feels guilty for,” Natasha responds.“Stopping Hydra won’t be one of them.”

“Stopping is one thing.Murdering is another.”

“Uh, I hate to point out to you, Sam, that we’re the _Avengers,_ ” Tony says.“Sooner or later we were going to have to live up to the name.”

“What do _you_ think, Clint?” Natasha challenges, turning to her oldest, and once upon a time, _only_ friend.

“I think he was a little too intense on the shooting range the other day for my comfort, but this isn’t about my comfort.”He crosses his arms over his chest.“When your enemies fight this dirty, you have to get dirty, too.It’s not for us to hold him back because we’re used to him acting a certain way.He’s a grown man.”

“A grown, brain-injured, deeply traumatized man,” Sam reminds them.“Who can pick up a tank.”

“Doctors,” Bruce says, addressing Fine and Strange, who have been listening to the proverbial tennis match with interest.“Do we have any reason to believe Steve doesn’t have capacity to make decisions right now?”

“No,” Fine says immediately.

Strange shakes his head, though he’s a bit more reticent.

“Then we have to respect his process,” Bruce says.“Sam, don’t you think it would be better to say this to him, instead of us all sitting here discussing it?”

“What am I going to say, hey Steve, I’m worried you’re going to murder a bunch of people and really regret it later?”

“If someone had said to me, hey Bruce, I’m worried you’re going to turn yourself into a monster, I might have thought twice about gamma radiation,” Bruce replied, somehow exuding calm in spite of the subject matter.There’s a gut-punched silence after he talks, as there so often is when Bruce is brutally honest.

“Thor,” Natasha says after a moment, eyes narrowed, “you’re awfully quiet over there.”Darcy is looking over at him, too; she can tell the other woman is thinking the same thing.

“I don’t know that my opinion is valid,” he says, shrugging his massive shoulders.

“You’re on the team, it’s valid.Out with it,” Tony prompts.

“He’s a warrior.In Asgard, it’s expected that warriors will kill, and sometimes it must be out of anger or vengeance, because a wrong has been done.It’s part of life for my people.Of course one would intervene if a friend went too far, but to my understanding Steven hasn’t done anything except kill men who were trying to kill him and those he loved.I see nothing wrong with it.”

“The real issue here is that we’re uncomfortable with squeaky clean Captain America acting like all the rest of us,” Natasha says, annoyed.“He’s human.Let him join the club.”

“It’s not so good when our moral compass is out of whack, Nat,” Clint points out.

“Then thank goodness Sam is here.”

Sam shifts on his feet.Natasha is sure his dark skin is hiding a hell of a blush.She didn’t say it to pick on him; she’s grown to appreciate his…well, it can’t be said that he’s untarnished, no one here is, but he’s _less_ tarnished than the rest of them. 

“There is one more thing,” Thor says.“It may put your minds at ease.”

“What?” Sam asks.

“None of you noticed that day, but it was not I who separated Bucky’s metal arm from his body.”

“Are you telling us that Steve did it?” Bruce inquires.

“Yes.” 

“But didn’t you use Mjolnir to—” Tony starts.Then he stops, blinks.

Thor nods.“Steven wielded Mjolnir.”

“He _lifted Mjolnir_?” Darcy squeaks, eyes wide.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Sam asks.

“It means that he is worthy to rule Asgard.If there is weakness, evil, malice, arrogance, or cruelty in his heart, it wouldn’t be possible to lift Mjolnir.I could not lift it in my times of weakness and arrogance.I believe Clint was witness to that.”

Clint nods.

“You said mortals couldn’t!” Darcy exclaims.

“I was wrong.” 

She takes a breath.She looks like she could cry, but not out of sadness.

“Sam, I do understand your fears.But they are unfounded.He rages for justice, not for bloodlust.”

“That’s a fine line,” Sam says softly.

“Perhaps,” Thor replies. “But one we must live with in these times.”

Silence settles over the group.

“Talk to him, Sam,” Bruce says at last.“I’ll come with you, if you want.”

Sam sighs and rubs his temples.“Not yet.He’s only just starting to talk to me, I don't want him to close up again.He’s trying to carry all this shit alone, and…”

“Hmm, I wonder who else does that,” Natasha says pointedly.Sam shoots her a dirty look.She smiles.“Vodka works, at least for the short term.”

“Vodka is _not_ a healthy coping mechanism,” Dr. Fine says, and it sounds like he’s said it before.But he doesn’t turn it down when she makes the rounds with the bottle, and neither does Sam.

 

 

 

They’re stopped at the edge of a tree farm.The nip in the air whistles through Steve’s lungs, crisp and sweetly shocking.It’s almost December.Almost time for these trees to be cut down and festooned with lights and baubles.Holidays have never seemed so silly to him as they do right now.

Bucky isn’t winded.He does rub at what remains of his left shoulder, though, and the muscles that join it to his neck.His cheeks are rosy, his lips a little chapped.It feels perilously normal, this run, this man in modern sweats, but for his empty sleeve and the ice that still remains in the moments his attention isn’t on Steve.

Steve walks into the rows of pine to catch his breath, one hand brushing along the branches.The needles are a tickle and a scratch at the same time, like stubble on a chin, like—

A vivid flash of memory slaps him, the sensation of his lips and nose pressed up against the coarse hair at the base of someone’s cock.It hadn’t always been bad, that feeling, when he wanted it.He must have, once upon a time; he remembers his own determination to please, to be worth the risk.But right now, he can’t remember what it’s even like to be a whole person who might have wanted that, and the urge to gag or vomit or _both_ is overpowering. 

He wills away a wave of nausea.Then he has to sit down because that weak-kneed feeling transforms almost immediately into anger, lightning-hot, blinding.This is what they did to him.They took the freedom not just of his body but of his mind, took it and made it so nothing is without claws.Filled it with dark corners he can’t map.

They’re just _trees_ , for fuck’s sake.

“Steve?”

He tries to look up at Bucky.“I’m fine.”He’s not and Bucky knows it, but old habits die hard.

Bucky sits down next to him, back against the spindly trunk of what will be some inoffensive Midwestern family’s Christmas tree in a week or two.

“We can do it ourselves, you know,” he says, looking straight head.“Once I have the surgery and the arm.”

The flinty edge in his voice brings Steve back from the precipice.“Do what?” he manages.

“Priority three.”

Steve’s breath puffs out in front of him as he tries to even out.He leans back against his own tree and weighs it in his mind.They _could_.The two of them, unleashed, can do a hell of a lot.The temptation is an ache in is chest.It’s been there since Rumlow put that brain scrambler on Bucky and pressed the button.

“Same question as Sam,” Steve says.“What would we do with them?”

“Kill them.”

He swallows.Bucky is dead serious, no pun intended.

“I told you that you never have to kill again.”

Bucky turns his head and looks at him at last.His eyes are half of something Steve knows and half raw hatred.“I know,” he says.“I _want_ to kill them.For everything they did to you, and to me, and to the world.I want them to die.”

_Oh, God, Buck, so do I._

It’s back, that feeling from the plane, that reckless _let it burn_ thing that made him hold his knee down on that man’s neck, that made him bait Rumlow.It’s powerful and it thrums beneath his skin.He could pretend it’s the first time he’s _wanted_ to kill instead of doing it out of necessity or duty or self defense, but it’s not.Steve knows the only thing that matters is what he actually does, though.He can think about it all he wants, envision ten thousand ways to hurt the people who hurt him and Bucky, but at the end of the day it’s about actions.

“Sometimes, Buck, I think death is too good for them.”His voice is weak and shaky and embittered.“Too quick.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says after a long, long while.“Makes me wish hell was real, so we could let the devil do the work.”

_It is real_ , he wants to say. _It’s right here on Earth, we’ve both been there._ But can he really believe in hell and reject heaven?Maybe they’re both here on Earth.Maybe he just needs to remember how to see.

Bucky’s here.He’s here with him, they’re together.That, in itself, is a miracle.If he thinks about it, Bucky was always the little piece of heaven he was allowed in a life otherwise marred by struggle and frustration and a lot of disappointment.

“Did they…” he chokes out, because he has to know, “did they ever…?”

“No,” Bucky says, somehow understanding what he’s trying to ask.“Or if they did, I don’t remember it.”

They had threatened. _If you don’t cooperate we’ll do it to him and make you watch._ They threatened but they never acted on it, and there’s only one reason for them to pass up such an opportunity for pain.They’re afraid of him.Even programmed, even docile, they’re afraid to present him with vulnerability, and they should be. 

“You’d remember,” Steve says softly.Bucky’s hand reaches for his and Steve accepts it.

“Whatever happens,” Bucky asserts, “Pierce is ours.”He rubs his thumb over Steve’s knuckles.

He nods.That’s fair.Maybe they can’t kill everyone that had a hand in this, but they can kill the man in charge.Steve has no qualms about making him suffer beforehand.He’s a madman, worse than Schmidt ever was, and he gets off on the pain of others.He knows that only too well.He’d never hurt Steve himself, but he was always there afterwards to taunt, to wound, to _manipulate_ until Steve was no longer sure which way was up.

_You keep letting them do this to you._

_You like it, don’t you?_

_You like being used._

_You know this is where you belong._

_You deserve it.You’re a failure, all this death and pain is because of you._

_Don’t you know he’s watching on the other side of the glass?_

_You’re no one to him._

_How much do you love him?_

_I’m going to send Brock in here and if you don’t come in the next twenty minutes, your beloved, he dies._

Bucky’s hand is cold on his cheek.He feels like he could pass out.

“Stay with me,” he says.It feels, just for a second, like 1939, like he’s laid up with a fever and Bucky’s taking care of him.

“I’m not your _mission_ ,” Steve growls, and tries to pull away without much effort, because he doesn’t understand why he suddenly feels _mean_.

“No, you’re not,” Bucky agrees, unfazed.“And I’m not yours.”

The fight goes out of him.He’s right.They deserve more than that.So much more.

He didn’t _let_ anyone do anything to him.He was forced.

He didn’t like it.

He didn’t want to be used.

He didn’t belong there.

He didn’t deserve it.

The pain and death was because of Hydra.

Bucky wasn’t watching, because if he had been, he would have snapped and pulled Steve out of there a lot sooner.

He wasn’t _no one_ to Bucky.He was the only person who was still a someone, even when everything else was stripped away.

How much did he love him?More than anything, then and still. 

And he hadn’t been able to come that time, or even stay hard because he didn’t want it and he’d been fucking brutalized by multiple people two hours before.Everything hurt, _everything_ , and there was nothing wrong with him for failing at an impossible task.Nothing deficient, nothing weak or selfish.It didn’t mean he loved Bucky any less, no matter what mind games Pierce was trying to play.

He survived.He _survived_ for Bucky, and Bucky survived for him, and they’re going to keep on surviving together now.Fuck anyone who gets in their way. 

Bucky doesn’t seem surprised when he launches himself at him.He meets his lips, eases them down onto the soft bed of pine needles.He wants—Steve doesn’t know what he wants, but this is enough.Just the feel of Bucky under his fingers and the taste of his tongue in his mouth. 

He doesn’t realize his hands are roaming until Bucky catches him and says, sharp but concerned, “Slow _down_.” 

It’s for him, not for Bucky, because Bucky is hard and throbbing beneath him, trying not to lift his hips for more contact.He’s been that way every time they’ve kissed for more than thirty seconds, and never once complained.Steve can only imagine the discomfort.Then again, it’s probably nothing compared to some of the things he’s endured.

Steve becomes aware that there’s a tremor in his hand where it rests on Bucky’s abdomen.Adrenaline, not endorphins.All of this has triggered fight or flight instead of what he really wants.Kissing Bucky is a way of fighting everything in his head, an effective one, but more than that could very well turn it on its ear.They’d already discovered that the hard way.

“I want…” he says, frustrated.“I want to make you feel good.”

“You do,” Bucky replies, low and vulnerable, like confessing that is wrong.For a moment there’s only the sound of their breathing, Bucky’s a little heavier than his.He looks like he used to when he had just a little too much to drink.

An idea hits him then.

“What if…what if you touch yourself while we kiss?”

Bucky stares at him like he expects him to take back the offer the second it’s made - like it’s a trick.But Steve can see how badly he wants to say yes.It occurs to Steve that this is as complicated for Bucky as it is for him.He hasn’t been allowed anything for himself in so long.Something like this, pure self-pleasure, is contrary to every bit of programming Hydra ever instilled. 

“It wouldn’t…upset you?” he forces out.

“No,” Steve says, pushing a piece of his long dark hair out of his eyes.“Would it upset you?”

“ _No_ ,” he breathes, and his lips twitch like he’s trying not to grin at the absurdity of the question.Steve leans down to kiss him again and he already feels calmer.Whatever steam they'd lost in conversation comes back quickly with the slide of tongues.Bucky _squirms_  as their kisses grow more intense.Steve knows how hot rebellion can be, and this is Bucky throwing a big middle finger in Hydra’s direction.

Bucky tilts his head back and can’t quite stifle a gasp.“Okay,” he says.

Steve smiles at him and then attacks his neck.He’s tense at first, but Steve has the advantage of already knowing what Bucky likes.A lot has changed, but his nerves, they’re still wired mostly the same, and the little pleasure spots still exist.Gradually Bucky relaxes under his attention and slides fingers down his belly and into the waistband of his sweats.His mouth falls open when he wraps his hand around his cock. 

Steve settles against his left side, so he’s out of the way.The cold remnant of Bucky’s metal arm presses against his chest.Steve puts gentle teeth to his earlobe, the tip of his tongue flickering against the soft skin there.He feels both powerful and brave, to do this for no reason other than that it’s what he wants and it will please his partner, who is very much someone worth pleasing.

“D’you—” Bucky’s having trouble getting words out, he’s so turned on, “wanna see?” 

“Yes.”Goddamn, that word makes him dizzy, because it’s his to give out now, just like _no_.

Bucky nudges his sweats down just enough to free himself.There’s nothing different to Steve’s eyes.Same fine specimen, cut because his mother was Jewish, thick and proportional and God, he can remember how much he liked Bucky’s cock inside him.He can’t summon what it felt like - too much Hydra noise - but he knows sometimes he _ached_ for it.

He aches to watch Bucky remember pleasure right now.Steve nudges him in the ribs and he lets out a breath, hand drifting back to his cock, gripping the base.The first few strokes are experimental, trying to recall what he likes.It doesn’t take long.Precum beads up and gives him the little bit of slick he needs.

In no time at all, Bucky’s alive against him, restless, breath stuttering.It doesn’t take a genius to know it’s been too long since anyone touched him like this.He should be lost in it, but every time his eyes try to close or roll back, Bucky snaps them back to Steve, watchful.Unwilling to let him be uncomfortable for even a moment.His glance says, plainer than words, _I know you won’t hurt me and I’d die before I hurt you._

The level of trust between them, after all that’s happened, is staggering.Emotion spasms in Steve’s chest.He wants to give Bucky _everything_ , when he can.If he can.Maybe even if he can’t.The usual tears prick his eyes.They’re not sad; they’re something he’d forgotten about. 

He leans down and kisses him so Bucky won’t see.Bucky moans into his mouth, hips rocking up.Steve kisses him hard, as filthy as he dares while he fists his cock faster and faster.Soon he’s breathing hard; Steve feels his own name against his lips, hot little exhalations almost too soft to hear.Then his head is pressing back into the dirt.He’s so _beautiful_ perched on the edge of orgasm, ghostly pale skin tinged pink, face remembering how to arrange itself into ecstasy. 

A moment later he shudders and comes, spilling over his fingers, his eyes finally closing.Steve watches him, cataloguing everything that flickers across his face and every twitch of muscle.A warm glow lodges in his chest.

When he returns to himself, Bucky looks dazed but hopeful.He moves, cautious, telegraphing his intent to touch.He trusts Steve to stop him if he doesn’t want it.Steve doesn’t move.Bucky’s hand settles lightly between his legs.Steve knows there’s nothing there, he’s soft, but it doesn’t matter.For the first time in a long time, no one else’s voice is in his head.Just his own. 

_Bucky, you're with Bucky.Everything’s okay._

And it is, at least for a little while.

 

 

 

Clint is watching from the loft of the barn when they come back.He crept up there to think.Mostly it’s about this morning’s conversation, but he’s also still debating whether or not to bring Laura, Lila, and Cooper back. 

He’s running through the pros and cons for the tenth time when he notices them.Both men are covered in pine needles.They must have been at the tree farm about ten miles down the road. They realize it before they get too close to the house and spend a few moments brushing the detritus from their clothing and from Barnes’s hair.Clint frowns to himself, unsure how he feels.

It might be nothing.Sparring, wrestling, a simple rest break among the trees.But on the heels of Steve’s unintentional confession a few days back, and knowing what he does about their relationship, it isn’t hard to imagine that it might be exactly what it looks like.

He definitely has feelings about damaged super soldiers fucking.There’s no way either of them can possibly be ready.Sam would _not_ like this.

But Steve is smiling as he sifts his fingers through Barnes’s hair, looking for any stray pine needles.Barnes nudges his hands away, nervous and irritated but gentle.They look as natural as he’s ever seen them.Happy might not be the right word, but Barnes is at his least robotic around Steve, and Steve is at his most _Steve_ around Barnes.

Maybe, just maybe, it’s a good thing.He won’t tell Sam.But he will keep an eye on them.

 

 

 

Thor pauses in his reading.Loki doesn’t stop fiddling with the trinket he’s been tossing in the air.His brother has been short with him since it became clear that Thor was no longer visiting him for training in the magical arts.Instead, Thor has been coming twice a week for simple socialization, and to read to him.He imagines Loki does not care for the literature of Midgard as much as he does, but it’s not exaggeration to say that there is nothing in Asgard that he hasn’t already read.

“Loki,” he says.

“What?Are you still there?I think I lost consciousness from boredom.”

Thor smiles.He complains, but he always wants to know how the story ends.

“Have you ever felt like…” he frowns, unsure exactly how to phrase the question, “like there was someone _with_ you in the projection?”

He catches the trinket and sets it down.Loki kicks his legs over the chaise and sits up.

“What do you mean, with you?”

“A presence.Like you’re not alone.”

“No,” he says, and both his tone and his face are too serious.“I’ve never felt that.”

“Neither has mother.”

“And you’re asking because you feel it?”

Thor nods.“It’s almost like there’s someone…hovering at the edges.Turning things red.”

“Red,” he repeats.

“I know it sounds crazy.”

“Not crazy, it sounds _dangerous._ ”His brother actually looks worried _._ “Thor, if someone or something is in the projection with you, it means they’re in your mind.”

His mother had been gently dismissive; maybe she thought it wasn’t possible, that their minds were too strong to be breached.But Loki doesn’t seem to share the sentiment.

“I had considered that,” Thor sighs.“Should I try to communicate with whatever it is?If it’s anything?”

“No.You must stop.”

“I can’t stop.”

“Why?” 

Thor stares at the floor for a long moment.“There’s no other way to get the information we need.”

“There must be.”

“There isn’t.No way that’s safe, anyhow.”

“And opening your mind to something unknown is safe?” Loki demands.

“This is what I can do to help.The others have already sacrificed enough.”

Loki is up on his feet, pacing now.“You speak as if you have sacrificed nothing.”

He sighs.It isn't that.He still aches down to his bones from the loss of Jane and Erik.But slowly the awareness has begun to sink in that in time he could experience love like that again.Everyone else in that house…they may not have the time.He has all the time in the world.

“It’s only been happening for a few days,” he says.“I asked mother as soon as I felt it.I have not been idle.”

“Yet you will not see reason, even from your unreasonable brother.”

Thor has to smile at that.It’s rare that Loki acknowledges his shortcomings.

“What would you have me do?”

“I would have you find a new task.”

Thor shakes his head.Impasse.

Then Loki says, slow, like he’s thinking and speaking almost at the same time, “Unless…unless you let me help you.”

“How do you propose to do that?” Thor asks carefully.Warning bells are going off in his mind.

“Let me in.I can guard you from whatever else lurks.”He’s got that wild idea-light in his eyes.

“Do you take me for a fool?” he demands.

“In some ways, yes,” Loki returns, without vitriol.He seems undeterred and that sparks Thor’s temper.

“You lecture me on the risk of letting something unknown into my mind and then tell me to let _you_ in.The last time I stood within arm’s length of you, you stabbed me, and truly, that was the least of your sins!What might you do in my mind, pray tell?” Thor nearly shouts.He’s forgiven Loki - _mostly -_ but he has not forgotten.

“I’m not an unknown, Thor.You’ve known me all your life.”

Thor shakes his head.“You must think me terribly stupid.”

“Not at all, actually.”Loki is watching him closely - expectantly?Thor frowns.

“What do you gain from this?” he asks, because Loki has taught him that’s the first thing to consider when trying to reason out a person’s motives.

“The universe,” Loki replies in a covetous voice, a gleam of approval in his eyes.“Sight beyond these walls.”

“You put yourself behind these walls, brother,” Thor says sharply.He feels no sympathy for Loki when it comes to that.“It’s not enough.I have no reason to trust you.”

“What can I possibly do from here?” Loki scoffs.He can’t quite hide his frustration, though, or how badly he wants out.

“Quite a lot, I imagine, with time and patience.”

Loki sighs and turns away, arms crossed.He paces the walls of the cell, feet tracing the rectangle that’s become the boundary of his life.Thor stays; it’s been a long time since they were this honest with one another and it’s overdue. 

“Fine,” Loki says at last.“I’ll let you into my head, too.That way you’ll know I’m not plotting anything.” 

There are a thousand questions, but only one makes it past his lips. “You would do that?”

“Yes.”

He contemplates his brother.Even that is no guarantee of anything.Loki has known the ways of the mind far longer than he; it’s conceivable that he could hide his true intent in some corner of his mind that Thor can’t reach.He itches with doubt.It doesn’t feel good, to be so suspicious of his own family, but he knew this was coming.Loki lives to scheme.

But perhaps he really _is_ that desperate.And even Odin said he believed some of Loki’s penchant for trouble was beyond his control.If someone was to _monitor_ him…if there was a way to curtail his urge for chaos before it had time to grow into a plan…

Oh, this is a dangerous game to play. 

Thor looks up, into his brother’s eyes, and says, “I have to think about it.”


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky recovers from surgery, Natasha gets restless, and a plan starts to come together to topple Hydra forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took so long, this chapter just kept growing.
> 
> We're in the home stretch here.

He wakes slowly, drifting up like a leaf in an air current.He feels slow and warm.There’s a little pain at his left hip and the sides of his head.It’s nothing, absolutely nothing compared to any other surgery he ever had.That pain made him vomit and shiver and forget to breathe.This is…this is a _headache_.They did surgery on him in three places and he has a _headache_.

He’s on the couch because they needed to keep him close to the equipment in the dining room.Steve is curled on the floor in a pile of blankets, sleeping soundly.He was there when the anesthesia hit.His face was the last thing Bucky saw before he fell down the well.Now it’s the first thing he’s seeing when he wakes up.That feels right.

He starts to shift and realizes that he has an arm.A left arm.It doesn’t hurt, which is incredible on its own, and it’s _quiet_.He can’t hear anything when it moves, no shift and clink of plates.

“Ok, Buck?” Steve murmurs fuzzily from his spot on the floor.

“Yes,” he replies, a little dazed by the truth of it.

Steve smiles, eyes closed, and is quiet, but his breath doesn’t change back to the slow, deep rhythm of sleep.It’s like he's listening while Bucky tests the movement of the arm.It’s too dark to really get a good look at it right now, but it’s light and effortless and the sensory input is far better than his old arm.If he didn’t know…if those scars didn’t tighten and ache in the space between night and morning…he might have thought he had a real arm.

This is, for some reason, a little discomfiting.He slides down from the couch and seeks Steve, burrowing into his nest of blankets.Steve accepts him with a hum and a contented sigh.He’s warm, so warm.His heat and his smell make Bucky drowsy.Before he knows it he’s down the well again.

 

 

He wakes and it’s light.Delicate and gray, just the start of morning.Thor son of Odin is in the kitchen, leaned up against a counter still and staring, but not at them.He appears lost in thought.There’s a cup of tea in his hand, one of Dr. Banner’s - Dr. Banner never seems to get any of his own tea.Everyone else drinks it before he gets the chance.

Bucky realizes his mouth is dry and he’s _hungry_.But Steve is curled around him, still sleeping, and he won’t wake him.Not for all the food and drink in the world.

 

 

The next time he surfaces Dr. Strange and Dr. Banner are where Thor was, talking in hushed tones.His ears are good enough to hear what they’re saying.None of it is about him or Steve.It’s interesting; he’d gotten the impression that the two men did not like each other.

 

 

The fourth time he wakes, he’s too hungry to go back to sleep.The house is still quiet, but it’s a purposeful quiet, a conscious effort to let them sleep.Steve’s eyes flicker open when he moves.He’s waiting, too, like the rest of them.It’s still strange to Bucky that anyone would put his needs before their own; it drives him to his feet, full of determination to get breakfast for himself and Steve.

It's a good idea until he hits the kitchen.Then he realizes he hasn’t actually _ever_ come in here of his own will, nor prepared food.The others always make it for him, serve it to him like he’s worthy of that.He isn’t afraid to eat anymore, might even admit that he enjoys food, but to take the initiative to retrieve it himself when he wants it - to even acknowledge that he can want it without needing it - that’s a level of autonomy he can’t quite wrap his head around.

He’s been standing there for a few minutes when Sam materializes out of nowhere.

“Feeling all right?” he asks, all gap-toothed smiles.

He’s nervous, so he falls back on old habits and gives him a status report.“Functional.Minimal discomfort.New hardware appears successfully integrated.”

“Great,” Sam says, not missing a beat.“Hungry?”

_Yes_.

He manages a nod.

“Okay.What do you want?”

_I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know_.Why did he come in here again? 

“Nourishment.For…for Steve.”

“Just Steve?”Sam tilts his head.“I thought you were hungry, too.”

“Yes.Steve.And me.If there’s anything leftover.”

“I don’t eat _that_ much, Buck,” Steve says from his spot on the floor, mock-offended, eyes soft.

“That’s not how I meant it,” he returns, frustrated.This jams him up, sometimes.The maze of choice.How is he supposed to know which is right, which is satisfactory to the people around him?They say it doesn’t matter in a lot of cases, that it’s about what’s right for him, but it will be a long time before he’s able to fully accept that.The tactical discussions they have each morning are easier.Those are what he’s made for, and he has no trouble speaking up and making decisions.But this…he can’t even figure out how to feed himself.It's maddening.

Suddenly Steve is there, sleep-mussed and gorgeous and looking more like his old self than Bucky has seen in a while.Though it’s less a look than a _feeling_. 

“Hey,” he soothes, touching his hand.“I know what you meant, Bucky.But I’m not more important than you.We’re all on equal footing here.And it isn’t like it used to be, okay?There’s enough food.Nobody has to go hungry.”

He half-glares at Steve.Steve _is_ more important than him, as food goes; he’s _heard_ the doctors say that he needs to eat more.He’s better, much better, but nobody has forgotten how they starved him.Or how thin he was when they first got here.A body that tall and solid was never meant to look that way.Like it did before, when there wasn’t enough.There were times when they both went hungry back then.

“You need more food, the doctors said so,” he says, a little peevish.Sam is trying not to smile and failing.

“Fine then,” Steve replies.“Make as much as you think I need, and the same amount for yourself.”

“Make what?”

“Whatever you want.”

Oh, he could punch him for being so unhelpful.The urge is both fond and familiar.And frightening; he _doesn’t_ want to hurt Steve, never again.He takes a step back.Steve immediately moves forward, face creased with concern.

“What’s wrong?”

“I…”

_I’m still so broken.Dangerous.Clint shouldn’t bring his children back here, it’s not safe, I’m not safe—_

“Bucky,” Steve prompts, pulling him back.“What’s going on in your head?Talk through it.”

Right.That’s what he’s supposed to do.That’s what Sam and Dr. Fine and Dr. Banner have told him.Slow down.Don’t let things snowball.Keep it simple.And above all, don’t lie, because no one can help him if he doesn’t tell them the real problem.

He can’t look at Steve.Shame churns in his gut.

“Just now, I had a thought…that I…that I wanted to punch you.”

He isn’t prepared for Steve to laugh.He hasn’t done much of that lately and it’s a wonderful paradox.Bucky looks at Sam for help; this isn’t a reaction he understands.

“So it’s not just me,” Sam says, brow raised.

Steve places a warm hand on Bucky’s shoulder.“I’m pretty sure you wanted to punch me at least twice a day when we were younger.”

“ _Why?”_ he says, aghast. 

“I wasn’t always easy to live with.I was usually sick or angry or starting fights, sometimes all three at the same time.You were the one who had to deal with me.Catch my colds and my temper, and bail me out of some bad situations.I wasn’t a very good friend, now that I think about it.”

“That’s not true,” he says, absolutely certain.The momentum of it builds in his chest.“You were — you—”

_You were everything_.

Out of the corner of his eye he can see Sam glancing between them.Sam is perceptive.Some old protective instinct switches on inside him and Bucky backs away from the swell of feelings.They are between him and Steve.Sam can’t know.Not that Bucky is entirely sure what they all mean, himself.

“Bucky, you can think whatever you want.The important thing is what you do.So go right ahead and think about punching me, just don’t do it unless I really deserve it.”

“It’s stupid to punch someone over food,” he decides.

Steve raises a brow in something like challenge.“Well, I’m not the one who wanted to.”

“You callin’ me stupid?”He doesn’t even know where the words come from.It’s like a reflex.

“You said it.”

Christ, that smarmy little face, the attitude —

Oh.He’s doing it on purpose.It’s so _familiar._ Bucky thinks he remembers how to play along.

“Guess I’m too stupid to make breakfast, then.Might burn the joint down.You better do it, Steve.”

Steve smiles like an idiot, and then cooks breakfast for everyone.

 

 

Everyone’s borderline comatose after the pancakes.In the post-breakfast lull, Sam sidles up to Steve.

“You have to let him struggle sometimes, you know,” he says.

Steve turns earnest blue eyes on him.“I can’t, Sam.He’s struggled enough.”His focus drifts, the lines of his face growing tender and fragile at the same time.“He never let me struggle if he could help it.” 

And honestly, Sam had a gentle but guiding lecture planned on why it was important to let Bucky find his own way, how letting him duck challenges wouldn’t help him in the long run, but it’s pretty clear that it’s a losing battle.One he’s not sure he can ask Steve to fight, in his current state.Books call what Steve and Bucky have _codependency,_ and usually that has a bad connotation, but Sam has seen nothing but good come from it as far as these two are concerned. 

Well, unless you counted their need to fucking _suffer and die_ for each other. 

Not knowing what else to do in the moment, Sam sighs and lets it go.

 

 

It takes a minute, but he knows he’s dreaming.That’s the only reason he doesn’t panic when he sees the walls of the cell.Steve is there and he’s okay, his face looks like it did before they beat him, but on second thought, he’s not okay.He’s pale and exhausted and grimy, his body taut, and his eyes…

He’s _afraid._ He’s trying not to let it show but it’s there on every inch of him.

Everything he should feel is absent.There is no urge to comfort him, or even to protect him.Bucky feels trapped inside a mannequin.He’s a soul in a possessed body, screaming and helpless.

_We have to go, we have to go now, please…_

Steve’s face, so hopeful…so frightened…

And his fist is crashing into it.

 

 

Adrenaline yanks Steve to the surface like a fish on a hook.Bucky is screaming.

“No! _No!_ Я не хочу причинять ему боль!” 

His voice is raw, hysterical, _primal._ It grates on some old collective consciousness and Steve is on his feet, heart pounding, trying to gather thoughts scattered by panic.He falls to his knees at Bucky’s bedside, gasping shallow breaths.He hasn’t had a nightmare this bad in weeks.

“Bucky.Bucky!Wake up!”

He shakes him hard and Bucky comes awake in a rush.The second he sees Steve’s face, he starts to sob so hard he nearly chokes.Steve reaches out and Bucky flinches away from him.He backs into the wall and gets as small as he can, hugging himself like he’ll fly apart if he lets go.

By now the door is open and Natasha and Thor are there.Tony is right behind them.He’s visibly shaky and has a burn on his hand.Probably working on something intricate in the lab until the screaming started.Natasha and Thor go to Bucky, but Tony comes to him.Steve lets Tony tug him to his feet and back to his own bed.

“The both of you,” he says, jittery, running a hand through his hair, “scream like fucking banshees.Are you okay?”

Steve can’t really answer Tony’s question, because the answer depends on Bucky.He looks like he knows that.It was nice of him to ask, though.Tony sits down next to him, close enough that their shoulders touch.They’re both live wires in need of a ground. 

Sam comes in a moment later and wordlessly sits on the other side of Steve.He’s sandwiched in security. It’s a lot of people for a small room but he wouldn’t trade it.

Natasha is murmuring to Bucky in Russian.She’s the only one who can speak the language to him without it activating his neural implant; Tony and Strange programmed it that way.Bucky is trying to answer.It’s slow going because he keeps breaking into tears that make him hitch and gasp and shiver.It doesn’t escape anyone’s notice that it happens whenever he looks at Steve.

In a half hour, with Mjolnir on his chest, Thor braiding his hair, and Natasha cajoling him in Russian and English, he calms down enough to fall asleep.Though every part of him wants to spoon around Bucky to comfort him, Steve wants to give him the space he needs, and it’s pretty clear from the way he kept welling up that it was a guilt dream.He has a lot of those.When he’s awake he seems to understand that things were beyond his control.In sleep, his mind eviscerates him.

Steve knows the feeling.Sometimes he wakes up feeling like such a failure, such a colossal waste of human space, that he can’t believe these people care for him.In any case, the thought of trying to sleep now is laughable.After seeing Bucky so upset his own dreams inevitably skew to dark places.He’s up.

It’s two in the morning.He’s too edgy to read or watch television.He needs company, and the only one not crawling back into bed is Tony.Steve follows him to the lab.

Tony doesn’t say anything, just settles back in to whatever he was doing.There’s music low in the background and a workshop smell that Steve didn’t realize was present or comforting until this moment.His muscles uncoil in slow increments.

At first, Tony hums along with some songs.Others, he sings, though not at full volume.It’s more a low murmur to himself as he writes, erases, writes some more, and lays out components.It seems to help him focus.Well, except when there’s a drum or guitar solo.Steve vaguely remembers Tony once mentioning that he taught himself to play twelve instruments in college because he was bored and on a bunch of drugs.He’s never seen Tony play a single one until now, and it’s the one he was born with.

He doesn’t have a bad voice.Interesting, that Bruce has never mentioned that Tony sings.Eventually, though, he gets too absorbed in what he’s doing and forgets about the music.Probably about the whole world.It’s fascinating to watch the transition. 

For the first time in what seems like a thousand years, Steve feels an urge to draw.There’s something about Tony’s absolute concentration, all his frenetic genius furrowed into a task, that makes him a piece of art.Maybe it’s because the majority of the time, he’s moving too fast to capture.Yes, that’s exactly it; his mouth, his hands, his expressions, his _thoughts_ , they’re hummingbird-quick. 

He gets up and grabs a piece of graph paper and a pencil from Bruce’s station.Bruce likes graph paper.Says it relaxes him.For as fast as Tony is, Bruce is steady and deliberate and analytical.It’s why they work so well together.Not for the first time, Steve wonders about their dynamic.Mainly, he wonders if they’ve ever kissed.It feels, sometimes, like they should, but maybe that would ruin things.

An hour is lost in watching and drawing.Tony curses under his breath a few times.He doesn’t bother to explain what he’s trying to do to Steve, and Steve is long past the time where he would have felt insulted by that.Tony is smarter than him, at least in this.

After a while Tony looks up and does a classic double take.

“Did you draw that?”

Steve’s lips stir, trying to smile.“Is there someone else here?”

“All this time I’ve been hand-drawing schematics like a second grader because I don’t have the computers I need and you’re over there drawing the Vitruvian Man.What the hell, Steve?”

“Don’t flatter yourself.”He shades the less-flashy-than-usual contours of Tony’s beard.

“Yeah, you’re no DaVinci.”

“You’re right, I’m not.”

“Did you just tell me I was right about something?”

“Nope,” Steve says, not missing a beat.“Must be hallucinating.You should sleep more, Tony.”

He puts down his soldering iron and looks uncharacteristically serious.

“It’s hard to sleep when people are screaming.Or when you might scream yourself.”

Steve tenses and keeps his eyes on the drawing.He feels shaky and threatened for no good reason.That happens a lot, lately.

“I’m sorry.”

Tony snorts in something like exasperation.“I didn’t mean it like that, Rogers.”He turns back to his work but he’s lost his focus.He just sits, staring at nothing.

Trying to work through the worm of anxiety, Steve breathes and uses a finger to smudge and soften the lines of the drawing.He knows now that Tony isn’t all hard edges.That had been tough to understand, at first, but he knows what it’s like to have to throw up a wall to protect the delicate thing underneath.Steve chances a look up at him.He’s perched on a barstool from Clint’s basement, elbow on the table, fingers in a loose fist against his lips.As Steve looks, he drops his hand and sighs.

“I had JARVIS translating earlier.Bucky said he dreamed he was back in the cell at Hydra HQ.You were there trying to rescue him, but he didn’t know you as anything more than his target, so he knocked you out.”

Tony’s lips keep moving, but Steve doesn’t hear any of it.It’s like he’s the one with the neural implant that shuts off his ears.There’s just white noise, blank, roaring, _consuming_ …

_Bucky, we have to go, we have to go now, please…_

There are hands on him and he panics. 

_He’s on the table, chained facedown, drugged but not drugged enough to be unaware of what’s happening to him—_

“No… _please…_ ”

It registers that the begging voice is his.He’s backed himself under Bruce’s desk.Tony is kneeling across from him, hands up.He’s breathing fast, wide-eyed and desperately uncomfortable.He hasn’t run to get someone else, though.Even in the midst of panic, Steve can recognize that that’s something, some new strength of his, and he’s glad he’s not alone.

“Bruce warned me.He told me not to touch you without you knowing.I’m sorry I’m the world’s shittiest listener.You just - you weren’t responding.”

The gratitude at not being alone quickly morphs into a choking shame that he reacted like that in front of Tony.He knows Tony would _never,_ not him, not anyone, but when he’s taken by surprise he just can’t tell things apart anymore.His friends don’t deserve that.They don’t deserve to be lumped in with rapists.

_In the dark all cats are gray, and you’re livin’ in the dark, Rogers._  

Anger and humiliation punch him in the gut with twin fists.He hates that they all know.It’s a mark, a scarlet R, a stain of weakness.And it’s one thing to know it, but he had just _shown_ it to Tony.

They don’t know that he never begged when he was there.Not for himself, anyway.Always for Bucky. _Don’t hurt him.Please don't hurt him._ Even when the metal fist was hurtling at his face, he thought: _don’t punish him for my stupidity._

The urge to hurt himself wells up fast and powerful.It’s not the first time, but it is the most tempting.His hands shake with it.There are so many things in here that he could use to inflict pain.Tony can't stop him.He fights with that for a long, long minute, mind racing, wrapping around everything, the echoes of pain, the things they planted in his mind that he wants _out_.

But there’s only one way out, and he _won’t_.

 

 

He feels calmer and calmer the longer he kneels there, watching the emotions grip Steve tight enough to clench his every returning muscle.

_This isn’t about you and your feelings_.

No.This is about Steve, what Steve needs, and he needs something fast.

“Do you want me to get Sam?” Tony asks.Sam’s a lot better at this.

Steve shakes his head and wipes at his eyes.He’s never seen a person look more miserable.It wasn’t the touch that set him off, it was something before.The mention of the cell?No, it wasn’t until…

It hits him hard, the why of this.

“It wasn’t a dream,” he says, before he can stop his mouth from forming the words. 

Oh, fuck.Oh, Jesus.Bucky wasn’t having a nightmare.He was _remembering_.That really happened, Steve really tried to take him out of there and…

Tony sits back, reeling.He _knew_ the timeline Bucky gave was off, anyone who could count days on a calendar did, but a man whose memories were zapped out of his brain at every opportunity was bound to be a bit unreliable.He didn’t think anything of it, and neither did Natasha.

He drags his gaze up, expecting Steve to be a mess, but he seems to be backing away from whatever ledge he was out on.He draws his knees up to his chest.

“I was losing myself,” he murmurs.“Took years to break him, but me, just a few weeks.”

Guilt clenches in Tony’s chest.It hadn’t been just a few weeks.It had been years for Steve, too.Slow, not always intentional, but Tony could admit when they were this low down that his torture had begun the minute SHIELD thawed him out.Selfishly, he’d never wanted to touch it, but he sure as hell saw it, the hollowness in his eyes in the rare moments he forgot concealment.Add the betrayal of Bucky and Insight, the horror of losing everyone he cared about to time and then again to a plot he couldn’t stop…

Steve was primed for collapse.

“I had to try while I could still tell the truth from the lies.It was starting to blur.”

And that was their game, wasn’t it?The key to getting what they wanted - a second Winter Soldier, a pawn to dupe the public - lay in twisting Steve’s mind.Or injuring it, when there wasn’t enough time to get there through pain and manipulation.  Just like they had with Barnes.

“I knew their routines and where they kept him.It was easy because they didn’t expect me to have any fight left.I should have just _gone_ , I would have made it out, but…”He meets Tony’s eyes, and there’s sadness but not a trace of regret in his gaze.“What was it all for, if I couldn’t leave that place with him?”

Tony doesn’t say anything.He can’t.It’s too painful to imagine. 

Steve goes on, voice low and flat.  “They were angry.When I woke up they beat the hell out of me to discourage me from trying again.Made it so I couldn’t, physically.And then they left me in that cell with him to remind me that he was gone.”Unconsciously, his posture tightens.“That he was _theirs_.”

“He wasn’t,” Tony growls.Anger is starting to stir beneath his skin, replacing the sick feeling.“He _isn’t_.”

“No,” Steve agrees softly.He picks at lint on his sweatpants.Well, really they’re Sam’s sweatpants.They all wear what fits now, without any real care for who it belongs to.“It took a good long time for him to wake up, though.”

God.Steve’s a better man than him.Tony’s not sure he’d even be able to look at Barnes if he was in Steve’s shoes.Steve breathes, and with each exhale he looks stronger. 

“I didn’t know about the memory wipes then, but they must have done it after the escape attempt.I was hoping he’d never remember.”

“And now he does.”

Steve’s eyes go hard and determined.“Not if he thinks it’s just a nightmare.”

Tony wants to tell him that it’s playing with fire.That he’ll figure it out and it will be twice the hit, knowing what he did to someone he cares about and that Steve kept it from him.At the same time, he understands.There’s so much guilt in Bucky already.

“I’ll never say a word,” Tony vows, solemn.

Steve swallows emotion down like the declaration means the world to him.“Thank you.”

There’s a heavy silence.They stare at one another, lighthouses with a gulf of pain between them.

“I’m sorry I spooked you.I should know better,” Tony sighs at last.He tilts his head and offers a wry smile.“After New York, I spent a lot of time under my workbench.” 

Steve’s hands are the only indicators of his ongoing nerves.They’re restless, twisting in the soft fabric of the sweats.Wherever he went for those few moments, it was nowhere good, and he’s still trying to shake it off.

“I read that they made schoolchildren get under their desks for air-raid drills during the Cold War,” Steve says.“Is that true?” 

Tony nods.“Crazy, isn’t it?”

Steve looks up at the wood above him.“What the hell is a desk going to do?”

“I don’t know.Still feels safer, though.”He edges back up to his knees.“May I?”

Steve nods and scoots over.

 

 

Bruce can only stop and blink when he walks into the lab.He knew Tony was going to spend the night in here, but he’s unprepared for the sight of him and Steve asleep underneath his workstation.Tony’s upright, legs out in front of him, and Steve is curled on his side with his head on Tony’s thigh.The blanket Bruce reserves for Tony when he falls asleep on the table is draped over Steve, along with Tony’s hand. 

He stares for a minute, and then he takes a picture, because Natasha will _never_ believe him.

 

 

He wakes to the mingled smells of coffee and bacon.Before he’s fully returned to himself and the world, it isn’t complicated to feel hungry.Soon enough reality falls over him like a fine mist, but the urge to eat doesn't fade the way it used to when he first got back.Steve’s stomach growls and he sits up. 

The movement wakes Tony.He leans up from the wall suddenly, nearly cracking his head on a vice grip handle that hangs over the table.Steve throws out a hand just in time.

“Thanks,” Tony says.Then he winces.“Oh my God.My back.”He shifts and moans theatrically.“My _ass_.How do you and Barnes make it look so easy to sleep on the floor?”

“Lots of practice.”Tony glares at him, dubious, and Steve shrugs.“I slept on the same beat-up couch until I was seventeen because there was only one bed in my mother’s apartment.Then I slept on Bucky’s floor, and the mattress we had after that might as well have been the floor.Sometimes we slept on the fire escape if it was hot, or in the park.You could do that back then.”The memory is vivid, as clinging as the heat that drove them outside.“Then the war, which, you know.”

“Ah yes, splendor in the European grass.”

“Usually it was mud.”

“Good for the skin.”Tony crawls out from under the table and stretches, making some truly ridiculous faces as he does.“Steve, I’m crippled.Help me.”

He can’t believe he’s smiling after last night.He won’t fight it, though.He unfolds himself from beneath the table and pulls Tony to his feet.

 

 

Bucky made breakfast.Steve is sure Sam helped, but he’s proud anyway.It’s a sweet and pleasant shock, and so are the three extra faces around the table: Laura, Lila, and Cooper.A weight seems to be lifted from Clint; he’s all smiles.

There’s something to be said for daylight.The nightmare seems forgotten.When he’s done in the kitchen, Bucky sticks close to him and gives him a shy smile when Steve asks for a second helping.Last night’s anguish feels like a hundred years ago.Today, right now, he’d gladly live it all again just for that little smile and the way Bucky cuts Lila’s strawberries into roses and drinks up her delight.

 

 

“Thor?”

He snaps to attention, not having realized how much he drifted.He looks up into the mingled gazes of his teammates.

“My apologies.These are serious matters and I should not let my mind wander.”

No one appears offended.Clint smiles - that’s all he’s been doing since his wife and children returned this morning - and says,

“We just wanted to know if you saw anything interesting in your projections the last few days.”

Ah.Thor exhales.He hasn’t done any projections since his conversation with Loki.Little else has been on his mind.After hours and hours of rumination, most of which was frustratingly cyclical, he had reached two conclusions.One, he cannot safely continue the projections without knowing what lurks in there with him, and two, he cannot risk trusting his mind to Loki.

Oh, he wants to.It’s terrifically tempting.He loves his brother, even his flaws, and wants to believe it can work.More than that, he wants to believe there isn't an ulterior motive.But he knows too much of Loki’s nature.His mind is never still, and there is a need in him for more, always more.Glory, power, recognition - even when there is no contest, he needs to feel that he is winning.What could be a beautiful, symbiotic connection would turn dark with his compulsions.

It’s a little heartbreaking, and it has made him sullen the last few days.In a house of so many sorrows he’s loathe to add to the heap, so he has kept it to himself.Darcy knows something isn’t right, and Bruce, too, but this isn’t for their confidence.It’s his to carry.

“I haven’t done any projections.”Perplexed silence meets his statement, and he plows on.“I have begun to feel a presence when I leave my body, and I don’t know what it is.”

“Loki?” Bruce asks, just like Thor knew he would.

“No.”

“The scepter?”This time the question is from Tony.

“No.It feels…sentient.”

“I’m not entirely sure that thing wasn’t,” Tony mutters.

“Neither am I,” Clint seconds.

“I suppose we can’t rule it out,” Thor allows, frowning.

“It’s in Hydra custody.Who knows what they’re doing with it,” Natasha says.

“Nothing good,” Steve says, grim.“Is there anything else you can tell us about the presence?Can you see it?Hear it?Clint might be able to…”

Clint grimaces, but picks up where Steve leaves off.“That’s a good idea.That thing’s been in my head.We don’t want it in yours.”

Thor nods.It _is_ a good idea.“All right.”He thinks hard about how to put it into words, what he’s been feeling.“Jane used to talk about something the people of this realm call the sixth sense.There is a different word for it in Asgard, but the feeling is the same.Intrusive, and like there’s something I can only see in the periphery.When I look for it I don’t see it, but when I don’t, it’s at the edges.It’s red.”

They turn to look at Clint, who shakes his head.

“No,” he says.“No, that’s not it.It was…way more than intrusive.And no red.Just black and white.Like I was watching myself in a movie.”

Natasha reaches out to squeeze his hand.He squeezes back and doesn’t let go.

“Not the scepter, then,” Steve says in a gentle tone, very aware of what he’d asked of his friend and teammate.“Thank you, Clint.”

Bruce seems perturbed.“Good that it’s not that, but we’ve got nothing else to go on.Are you _sure_ it isn’t Loki?”

Thor nods emphatically.“Yes.Actually, he begged me to stop the projections.He was adamant that it’s some kind of threat.”

“Maybe he knows more than he’s letting on.”

“That has occurred to me, and I plan to ask.But I believe that his reactions were genuine.”

“I don’t know how you can believe anything that comes out of his mouth,” Clint gripes.

“Call it brotherly intuition,” Thor shrugs.“You’re familiar.”

Clint sighs, but doesn’t argue.It’s no small secret that Clint’s brother finds trouble easily.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this,” Steve starts, expression a little dismayed, “but I agree with Loki.We have to assume it’s a threat.No more projections.”

 

 

Things are…not easy, but, for a little while, they’re simple.Bruce watches everyone around him.They’re healing.

Clint is the most obvious.He’s so happy to have his family back that he can’t wipe the smile off his face.The kids are clingy but joyful.They make everyone else smile, too.It’s especially nice to see the way Natasha reacts to them; the iron eases out of her spine.She becomes someone light and playful that Bruce barely recognizes.Barnes, too.It’s clear that once upon a time, he knew his way around children. 

Steve and Bucky are pulling one another ever upward.It’s slow, halting, but undeniable.Steve’s eating.Not as much as he used to, but enough for his body to start recovering its muscle bulk.Bucky watches him - watches _all_ of them - to remember the customs of humanity and social cues.Little bits of the man he was are shining through every day.He’ll never be the same, but in this house, that’s true of everyone.It’s oddly comforting.

Tony is smiling, laughing, and snarking again.He’s far from okay, but it’s more okay than he’s been since the day everything changed.It’s _this_ \- all of them in the same house together.He thrives on the proximity to this family he never had.

Bruce feels…well, he feels the same way.He’s spent so much of his life alone or wishing he was.This sensation of closeness, of wanting people around, is new.Scary, but welcome.If it ever ends, he’ll be okay, but some of others…Tony, mainly… 

And, shockingly, maybe Thor.He’s the only one who seems to be going the other way.Since the discussion of the interference with his projections (or maybe even a little before that) he’s been quiet and lost in heavy thoughts.Bruce knows the look of it.He’s spent a lot of time there himself.

Part of it is frustration that he can’t contribute.Thor, like Steve, is used to just going after what he wants.They’re both learning; Steve how to put on the brakes, and Thor how to be sly.It doesn’t mean either of them likes it. 

There’s something else, though.He isn’t an expert at human or Asgardian behavior, but Bruce can guess what ails Thor.He follows him out to the porch and blinks; it’s snowing.

Bruce looks at his watch.December 23.

“White Christmas,” he murmurs.

“What was that, my friend?” Thor asks.He’s wrapped in his fur-lined cloak, his expression sedate everywhere but his eyes.

“Oh.Uh.Winter solstice festival.It would be Yule for you, I guess.”

“Ah, yes.A great feast.Is that to occur soon?”

“Two days.”

His brows rise.“I shall have to bring some mead from Asgard.Will there be a sacrifice?”

Bruce bites down on a smile.“A ham, probably.Or a few hams, there are twelve of us.”Would’ve been fourteen, but both Dr. Fine and Dr. Strange left yesterday.Fine still has some family that should be discovering that he’s alive right about now, and Strange didn’t say it directly, but Bruce is pretty sure he’s going to try for Kamar-Taj.If he makes it, and if they ever see him again, Bruce has a feeling he will be a very different man.

“Hmm.It is always geit and villsvin for us.”

Bruce takes the seat next to him and cuts to the chase.“Thor, what’s bothering you?”

The blond looks over, surprised.“What?Nothing.”

“I know brooding when I see it.I’m kind of an expert.”

Thor’s lips tremble into a slight smile.It fades away a second later.“There is enough despair in this house.I need not add mine.”

“Then just add it to me.I have less despair than everyone else.”Bruce cuts his trademark uncomfortable truth smile.He does feel a little guilt about that.“I had no one to lose, except the people who are under this roof, and you’re all still here.”

“That isn’t true,” Thor says fervently.“I cannot say I understand your government in great detail but I know you have all lost your basic faiths.Steven assures me that this is as painful as losing a loved one.”

It would be, for Steve. _Especially_ for Steve.

“I didn’t have any illusions about the governments of America or anywhere else,” Bruce replied.“I was in hiding when the team formed, Thor.I didn’t want to be there.I didn’t trust SHIELD.”He looks at his hands.“Sometimes I hate being right.”

Thor sighs.“I did not know.”

Bruce shrugs.There’s a silence, but it’s an easing one.

“Loki has made me an offer, and I want to accept it but I know I can’t.I can’t trust him.I can’t trust my brother.”He rubs his hands over his face.“I can trust all of you, but not the person I am closest with.”

“What kind of offer?” Bruce asks in a careful tone, after Thor’s words have hung in the air a moment.

“I told him of the disturbance in my projections and he offered to shield my mind.”

“But that means you’d have to let him in.”

Thor declines his head in a nod.

“I see the dilemma.”

Surprisingly, Thor laughs.“Humans have so many words for a problem.” 

“They aren’t all the same,” Bruce insists.

“I am starting to understand that.”He sighs again, but he seems lighter.“Thank you, Bruce.I do feel better, having spoken of it to another.”

“Can’t hold everything in.”He looks out at the farm.He can see Clint’s truck coming up the long driveway, throwing a little dust behind it.The Bartons went down the road to the tree farm to get a Christmas tree.Bruce looks back at Thor and smiles again.“Sooner or later it will explode.” 

“When the day comes that we are in a position to strike back at those who drove us to this pain,” Thor murmurs, “surely, it will.”

Bruce nods, grim but reassured by Thor’s certainty.It’s a when, not an if.And then Clint and Laura and the children are there, and he helps carry the tree inside, and they all slide into the thrall of Christmas.

 

 

He feels warm and flushed and loose, carefree like only a chemical could make you.Thor’s Asgardian mead didn’t disappoint.Steve is buzzed for the first time in decades, and he’s pretty sure Bucky is, too.

It would be worse if he hadn’t eaten so much.Laura is an _excellent_ cook.Sam, too.And Darcy can bake a mean cake.It borders on uncomfortable, how full he is, but it’ll pass.Lord knows he’s lived through much greater discomfort.

Bucky’s head dips down onto his shoulder as if he’s somehow heard the thought.He nudges his nose into the spot where Steve’s neck and shoulder meet, and Steve’s mind goes blank and floaty.Maybe it’s Bing Crosby’s familiar voice drifting through the house, the relative stillness after dessert, the fuzzy glow of the Christmas lights - all of it makes him feel like nothing can touch him.Except the things he wants.

Steve tugs Bucky to his feet.Bucky follows, relaxed and sweetly pliant.This was how he got when he had just enough whisky, back then.He’d kiss Steve so deep, tasting of caramel and vanilla and tobacco, and smile at him like his slender hands were what kept the world turning.Let Steve climb on top of him and hold onto his narrow hips until they were both reduced to frantic pleasure, gasping into each other’s mouths.

He _aches_ for that.Wishes he could crush all the years between then and now into dust and scatter it to the winds.Once they’re in their room, Bucky lays down on his back like he knows, and Steve brackets him.He doesn’t settle his weight all the way down, not yet; the contact of Bucky’s hips against the insides of his thighs is enough.

He reaches for Bucky’s hands.Places them palm down on his sides.

“I—I want you to touch me.I’ll tell you if I need to stop.”

Bucky doesn’t ask him if he’s sure.He just nods, a familiar glazed look in his eyes.His gaze sticks on Steve’s lips and Steve is only too happy to lean down and kiss him.

 

 

He starts slow, running hands - one flesh and blood, one metal - over Steve’s clothing.Just on his torso.Maybe the sides of his hips and thighs.Nowhere that might shut him down.

Steve’s eyes are heavy, lips parted just so.Bucky thinks he must look the same way.It feels good, the closeness, his weight, the glide of fabric and skin against his sensory receptors.Mr. Stark programmed the arm with two sensory modes.One is, as he put it, ‘as close to normal sensation as we could get’, and the other is for combat.More or less, the pain receptors shut off.It feels similar to the old arm when it’s in that mode.But this other one, which he’s left on to try to get used to, it’s…

He grazes his metal fingers just beneath the hem of Steve’s shirt.God.His skin is so warm, soft and hard at the same time, smooth - at least in this spot. He feels the muscles beneath twitch.A quick check of Steve’s face tells him it’s safe to go on.He presses an entire palm beneath the shirt, and as he does, memory pushes hard at his consciousness.

Steve, desperately holding a hand over his own mouth the first time after the escape from the hell that was Austria.At least he thinks it was Austria; the exact details are elusive.But he knows it had been a long time, and that the feel of such strong thighs around him was new.Like a bit of silent film, he recalls the glimmer of tears pooling in tiny beads by his nose and sliding off into his ears as he came.He wants to give Steve that kind of pleasure again.

_Baby steps._ That’s what Sam always says.Baby steps.This is what he can do to make Steve feel good right now.It can’t be rushed. 

So he touches him, slow, easing him out of his shirt, remapping skin and scars.Steve doesn’t flinch.He just sighs, eyes closed, head tilted back.Every now and then he opens his eyes like he’s making sure it’s not a dream.Bucky knows the feeling.At least once a day, he has to convince himself that this is real. 

Steve catches his hands and pulls them up to his lips.He presses little kisses all along the skin and metal and _oh_ , that feels…

“Good?” Steve asks.

“Good,” is all he can manage, because that word is so far from adequate.“Really good.”He could feel where the old arm was in space, pressure or impact, and there was a sensor to tell him when it was getting hot, but actual sensation?No.There was _nothing_ like the way it feels when Steve grazes his lips over the meat of his thumb.Certainly nothing like the unexpected wave of shivery pleasure he experiences when Steve’s tongue flicks out to follow his lips.

“I read,” Steve says softly, breath tickling his palm, “that the way our brains are wired for sensation, our mouths, lips, and hands have the most real estate.I didn’t know that.We’re all so caught up on…”

He doesn’t finish, but Bucky knows what he’s getting at.People are quick to go below the belt for pleasure, and apparently they’re missing out.

“I figure if I can’t…”

He trails off again.But a moment later he ducks his head slightly and sucks Bucky’s index finger into his mouth, and _holy Mother of God._ The one shred of his brain not immediately occupied by the rush of his dick filling can spare a thought to worry if this is too much, if it’ll upset Steve, but Steve is the one doing it, for fuck’s sake, and he thinks the choice of his metal hand is deliberate.It won’t smell or taste like skin, won’t bring him back to anything he doesn’t want to remember. 

“Good?” he echoes to Steve, using every ounce of his self control to stop himself from rolling his hips up against him.Steve nods, his cheeks pinking up when he realizes the effect he’s having on Bucky.But then his brow furrows and his face takes on that determined look that’s so familiar; Bucky knows he’s in for trouble.

He struggles not to moan as Steve lavishes attention over his metal hand, suckling, nipping, licking.His fingers trace feather-light paths on Bucky’s forearm.He starts to lose it when Steve gets to his thumb.Bucky can’t help but move it against his lips, push it gently between them.Steve accepts it worshipfully, eyes closed, and it makes him think of other things, _bad_ things, things Steve won’t be able to do for a long time, if ever, but it’s _so good—_

It’s the alcohol, probably, that makes it easy for him to shoot off like a firework with only the desperate friction of his other hand through his clothes.He feels like the world’s dropped out from under him, like he’s floating.Steve’s watching him with bright eyes.His breath is quick in a good way.

“You’re so beautiful like this, Buck,” he says.He kisses across articulated metal knuckles.

“I doubt it,” Bucky manages.This long hair sticks in every direction if he lays down for more than ten seconds.He’s thought about cutting it but it feels like a big step, one he isn’t ready for.He stares up at Steve and sees no lie in his face, though.For some reason, as his brain returns, he feels ashamed.“I’m sorry.It wasn’t supposed to be about that,” he apologizes, throat tight.

“Of course it was.”

“But—”

Steve releases his hand and puts his pointer finger against Bucky’s lips.It takes him a second to realize that it isn’t there to hush him.Oh.

He parts his lips and tentatively touches his tongue to the salt of his skin.Watches Steve watching him as he traces his fingerprint.He tries to remember if they ever did anything like this before but his addled brain supplies nothing.That’s okay.Hydra will never get to touch this memory.

This Steve, scarred and so damn brave, himself but harder, like iron forged into steel, will never be theirs. _Never_.And neither will he, not again.

Bucky sighs, sure for the first time since all this began.He’s really free.He’s free, he’s home, he’s _loved,_ and it doesn’t matter if he’s nowhere close to understanding the rest yet.Steve finally settles his weight down, straddling him properly.Trusting the contact of their bodies. 

“Merry Christmas, jerk,” he says, cupping Bucky’s cheek.

There’s an answer on his lips, something that tries to come out automatically, but it’s just beyond his reach.Steve smiles and kisses him all the same.

 

 

Natasha pads over and climbs onto the couch.She settles in next to Clint, shoulder to shoulder, both of their feet on the coffee table.He watches as she flexes her ankles up and down, working that tight achilles.She’s been rehabbing herself with Stakhanovite fervor, though no one ever sees her at it.He’s not sure how anyone is managing to find privacy in this farmhouse that wasn’t big enough when he and Laura moved in, let alone now, but stealth is one of her oldest skills and he knows why she hides. 

“Where are Steve and Barnes?” she asks around a yawn.The four of them were the last ones standing, until a few minutes ago.

She still doesn’t call him Bucky.Everyone else does, but something tells him that he’ll never be Bucky to her.There’s a story there.Clint knows it doesn’t do any good to dig when it comes to Natasha.She’ll share if and when she wants.He’s always been okay without all the details, and he suspects that’s why he ends up getting them.

“Sleeping, probably,” he answers.“That’s the most either of them has eaten in months.”

Natasha nods, conceding the point.

Privately, Clint is pretty sure they aren’t sleeping, given what he knows and the way they were looking at one another when they got up.He’s less worried than he was when he first saw them brushing pine needles off one another.It has to be like it was with Natasha; they have to figure out for themselves what works and what doesn’t.He imagines Steve has never been much good with someone telling him what not to do, and Barnes…well, he deserves a break from being told what _to_ do, and then some.

Natasha leans closer, tucking up against his side.He can smell the tinge of vodka on her breath.She hasn’t partaken much lately, and of all days it’s understandable because it’s Christmas, but he knows it’s more than that.

She sits in silence.He rests his temple on top of her head, but fights the siren call of sleep, aware that there’s something on her mind.Then, just past midnight - no longer Christmas, Clint notes with some amusement - she draws in a breath.

“It’s too quiet.”

“Yeah,” he responds.“I know.”

“What’s to stop them from just…reverse engineering Tony’s engines?What if they’re rebuilding new helicarriers instead of trying to regain control of the originals?What if they’re just crossing people off their list the old-fashioned way?What if their Avenger death squad is closing in on us and we don’t even know it?Without Thor checking up on them we have no intel, we’re completely blind—”

She stops herself, exhaling in frustration.She’s a spy.Lack of information smarts worse than any injury, for her.It doesn’t really sit well with Clint, either.

“We have to start moving on the data dump, at least.I can’t sit and wait for their next move,” she declares.

“Okay,” he agrees.

She stares at him, suspicious, like she’d expected more of a fight.

“You’re right, we’re stalled out,” Clint continues.“We need the recovery time, but we all know we don’t really have it.We have to get back to work.”

There’s no perfect time, no flawless plan.They can’t go big on this one no matter how much they want to.Natasha’s instincts are good.If they can make the data dump happen, the public will draw its own conclusions, and that’s the biggest hurdle.With support comes money, tech, manpower - all things they’ll need to really root Hydra out and restore the government.

Tomorrow, vacation’s over. 

 

 

At four in the morning, Bucky sits up.

“Punk.”

Steve stares at him through one bleary eye.“Wha?”

“Merry Christmas, _punk_.That’s what I was supposed to say.”

A strange, fragile, amused smile takes over Steve’s face.“Go back to sleep,” he says, tugging Bucky down to the mattress.He pulls him close, big spoon, and kisses his neck.It’s all too easy to fall back down the rabbit hole of real, restful sleep that he doesn’t think he’ll ever get enough of.

 

 

Bucky’s face falls when they ask him for Pierce’s address the next morning.

“I realized after that meeting…it was carved inside one of the plates on the old arm.All I remember is Bethesda.”

“That’s something to work with,” Bruce says encouragingly.

“Would you know it if you saw it?” Steve asks.

He nods.“Yes.Definitely.”

“There’s always street view on Google Maps,” Darcy pipes up.“We can go street by street in Bethesda.It’ll be tedious, but…”

“What is Google Maps?” Thor asks from the other side of the room, and is roped in before he even knows what he’s agreeing to.

 

 

It takes an ungodly amount of hours, with Darcy, Bruce, and Thor switching off mouse-clicking duties and Barnes staring at the computer screen like he can will Pierce’s home into existence, but they find it.

“There.That one.That’s it,” Bucky says, pointing.It’s a huge ultra-modern monstrosity, square and sleek with floor-to-ceiling windows.It screams posh.More than that, it screams _rich._

“Just one problem,” Bruce sighs, rubbing his eyes.“It’s up for sale.Says it’s unoccupied.”

Bucky curses so colorfully that Clint puts his hands over Cooper’s ears.

“Whoa,” Tony says from across the room.“Cap, your friend’s got a mouth on him.”

“That’s nothing compared to the filth he can spew,” Barnes says, jerking a thumb at Steve.

“Wait, _what?_ ” Tony demands.“I’ve barely heard this guy say a bad word, ever.”

Bucky levels a deeply skeptical look at Steve, who caves in record time.

“I had a reputation to uphold!”

Bucky snorts, then turns his attention back to the computer.Natasha has joined them and stands shoulder to shoulder with him, thinking.After a moment, she says, “Is the real estate agent fair game?”

Everyone in the room looks at Steve.For a second he looks annoyed, but then he crosses his arms over his chest.

“Would Pierce even ask that question?”

“No,” Bucky and Natasha say in unison.

He holds up his hands, palms up.The conclusion is obvious.

“Okay,” Natasha says.“The real estate agent is mine.”

 

 

At the last minute, Steve says, “Just intimidation, though, right?”The real estate agent is a civilian, after all, some person just trying to do their job. 

“I’ll only tase him if I have to,” Natasha promises.It sounds like she really means it.

Sam turns away so no one can see him smiling.

 

 

Natasha doesn’t even have to get ugly with the realtor; after studying the guy for a day, she’s certain she can get what she wants without a single threat.It’s an old, familiar routine.

She bumps into him accidentally at a coffee shop.She’s disguised, so she doesn’t worry about the cameras.It’s too easy to make it a meet-cute.He’s not a bad looking guy, but often, even attractive men seem astonished that she’s talking to them.Once she flirts a little, they fall over themselves to ask her on a date.She says yes.

Annoyingly, he’s not available until the next Tuesday.She doesn’t want to wait that long, not in the least because it means staying in a hotel in D.C. away from the security of Clint’s house and everyone she cares about, but this is the best way.Anything else would likely require her to make this man disappear, and Steve might find a way to excuse it, but Sam wouldn’t.She isn’t sure when that started to matter.

So on Tuesday she dolls herself up and heads out to a nice, trendy bistro.The food is good, thank heaven, because Drew the realtor is an absolute snooze.Makes him easy to manipulate, though.A few giggles about how all she knows about selling houses is what she sees on Million Dollar Listings transitions to asking whether he _has_ any million dollar listings.She knows full well that Pierce’s home is on the market for 2.2 million.He’s only too eager to tell her that, and she supposes he does stand to earn a handsome commission if the thing sells, which would help his cause with most women.

Natasha asks, oh so innocently, if that home belongs to a celebrity.He tells her yes.Encouraged by her awed expression - she’s _really_ letting him think she’s eating out of his hand - he drops the name without any reticence. _Alexander Pierce._

A few more careful questions and she knows he’s in Potomac now, nice modern place, a steal at 1.3 mil, not too big, since there’s no Missus.He wanted to downsize.Isn’t that sweet.

The intensity with which she wants to downsize the amount of blood in Pierce’s veins must come across as lust.Drew thinks he’s going to get lucky.He excuses himself to the bathroom, probably to make sure he doesn’t have anything in his teeth and chew a mint.He’s left his phone on the table because she asked to look at some of his listings.Isn’t it just a pity that her phone’s dead.

It’s all there, for someone who knows where and how to look.In thirty seconds she has Pierce’s phone number, e-mail, and new address.She takes a picture of it with her very not dead phone.Then she stands up and walks straight out of the restaurant.

Drew is boring, and he’s also married.She knew that before she even bumped shoulders with him in the coffee shop, courtesy of the internet.Natasha fires off a text to his phone, a generic fuck you, you adulterous scumbag.He’ll assume she saw something on his phone and left in a rage.Either he’ll say nothing, he’ll beg her not to tell his wife, or he’ll try the ‘she doesn’t mean anything to me, baby, you’re the one’ routine.This ain’t her first rodeo.She dumps her burner phone in a sewer.

Walking through the biting January wind, she lets the exhilaration flow through her.It feels like home, _real_ home, and that isn’t always a bad thing.It wasn’t Russia herself that made her; it was her people, her government.Natasha can still close her eyes and think fondly of the kind of cold that builds frost on eyelashes, the perfect burn of vodka on a clear night, and the precious rarity of a sober smile. 

She detours to a hole-in-the-wall Russian restaurant she ordered from once a week when she lived here.This is the only thing lacking about Clint’s house.She’s full from the meal at the bistro, but there’s a mini-fridge in her hotel room and she’s more than happy to eat her takeout for breakfast. 

Finally, _finally_ , they can make a move.

She toes off her stilettos once she’s back at the hotel, puts her feet up, and calls the house.Sam picks up.

“Hey,” he says.“You all right?”

“Aside from being subjected to excruciating boredom for two hours, I’m fine.Got what we needed.”

“Knew you would.” 

There’s a short but comfortable silence.

“Sam,” she says, because there’s no time like the present, “are you going to put up a fight when Steve and Barnes claim Pierce?I think you know they’ll want to.”

“Yeah,” he sighs after a long pause.“It’s crossed my mind.” 

“And?”

This time the silence is longer.She can hear the murmur of voices in the background.It’s late, but half the team is made up of insomniacs or people with too many nightmares, so it’s no surprise they’re all up even though it’s pushing midnight.The voices rise in volume, and a moment later she distinctly hears Clint reminding them that his children are sleeping.They quiet down.

“What’s the commotion?” she asks, a smile playing at her lips.

“Steve is kicking Tony’s ass at Battleship and he’s not taking it well.”

That sounds about right.Tony is _so_ smart, but he often underestimates the intelligence of others, and he lacks patience.Steve isn’t overflowing with it, either, yet he has this ridiculous ability to strategize on the fly.Things that take a room full of generals days to plan can work themselves out in Steve’s head in the space of a minute or two.She’s figured out that most of the time he only _looks_ like he’s flying by the seat of his pants.Tony’s doomed. 

“Are you going to answer my question?”

“Revenge doesn’t solve problems,” Sam says, low.

“No.But this is about control, Sam.”

He sighs again, and she can just picture his expression.“I get it.Gotta kill the boogeyman.I just wish…”

“I know.”

She does, and he must feel it, even over the phone.

“Get home safe, Natasha.”

“I will.Сладких снов.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Ask Barnes.”

“Nope,” he says, and hangs up.

 

 

Bucky lurks at Darcy’s door, and this time it’s not for the music, though that’s pretty good.It takes her a minute to notice.She’s lost in research.All of their planning is for naught if they don’t know who in the government has been corrupted by Hyrda.Almost since the beginning, she’s been tracing the many tentacles of Hydra from person to person, politician to politician, mapping who’s a known agent, who’s taken money from who, and the like.JARVIS is pretty good at following the metaphorical paper trail, and Darcy’s good at connecting the dots.It’s worse than they thought.He’s heard Stark muttering about running a simulation of ULTRON to compare to her findings.

“Hey, honey,” she says at last, when she feels his proximity.Her smile is big and warm and Bucky now knows she reminds him of _Peggy_ with her smarts and dark hair and red lipstick, though Peggy wasn’t an indulgent woman, on a whole.She couldn’t afford to be in that time.

“Hi,” he says, stiff.He still isn’t good at small talk.

“You like the song?”

“Yes, but…”

She waits him out.There’s no pressure here.

“I, uh…could you…help me to find something else?With the Google maps?”

“Of course.”She pulls it up in half a second.“What are we looking for?”

He tells her about the bank vault.Not what’s in there, or what was done to him in that place, but everything he can remember about it that might help to identify where it’s located.It won’t be obvious; Hydra will have taken tremendous steps to conceal it.Bucky knows it’s a long shot, and coming from someone who’s pretty damn good at long shots, it may as well be impossible.But he has to try.

“Is it okay if I ask JARVIS to help?” she questions.

“Only if he…” - he, more like _it_ , but no, the AI is more human than some humans he’s had the misfortune to meet - “only if he doesn’t tell Mr. Stark.”

“All right,” she says, clasping one of his hands.“I’m on it.”

 

 

The postcard comes through a few days later.It’s addressed to Laura McCall.When Clint said his marriage was off the books he wasn’t kidding; for a long time only Nick Fury and Phil Coulson knew, and it’s the sole reason Laura and the kids are safe in all this.As far as the government knows, she’s a widowed single mother with no connection whatsoever to the Avengers.

So the postcard is addressed to her maiden name, but it’s obvious who it’s really for when Bruce snatches it up off the table.It’s from Kathmandu, Nepal.

“He made it,” Bruce says.

“Who made it where?” Darcy asks, looking over his shoulder.

“Doctor Strange.He made it to Kamar-Taj.”

“What’s Kamar-Taj?”

Before he can begin to try to explain it, Tony pipes up. 

“It’s the place where Big Green here learned to control the Other Guy.”

“You were paying attention when I talked about that?” Bruce asks, incredulous.

“Of course I was,” Tony scoffs.“It’s called multitasking.”

“This, coming from the man who can’t remember to eat when he’s working.”

“Haven’t died from it yet.”

“Oh, well here’s your medal.”

Tony is distracted a moment later by some expression of Steve’s that Bruce misses entirely.

“What?” Tony demands of the blond.

“Nothing,” Steve replies, and he looks like he’s biting the inside of his lips to keep from smiling.

 

 

It’s really happening.The plan is coming together bit by bit.They’re at their best when they’re working towards a goal and this is no exception.The momentum is building and everyone is buoyed by it.

Bruce is…less enthused.So far no plan has made mention of an angry green muscle creature, but he can’t imagine they can do this without everyone on board, and that includes the Other Guy.It’s selfish of him to want to opt out; he knows that.That can’t stop him from feeling that way.

So far, it’s this: Steve and Bucky will go for Pierce, get his retinal scan and whatever else they might need, and then…well, nobody’s talking about that.Natasha and Clint will be the ones to infiltrate SHIELD’s new headquarters and complete the data dump.Tony, Thor, and Sam will be on standby at the helicarriers, ready to take them down.They’re still working out the kinks on that one, but there ought to be enough firepower between the three of them.

“Um,” Bruce says, during the next meeting, “what am I going to be doing?”

There’s a pause, and then Tony speaks up.“I thought it was obvious.You’re the new Fury, and Darcy’s Hill.You’re directing traffic.”He gets a look on his face, and Bruce cuts him off at the pass because they have spent way too much time together lately and he knows what Tony is about to say.

“No, I will not wear an eyepatch.”

“ _Damn it_ ,” Tony curses, like he’s been stabbed in the gut with a dull blade of disappointment.

“Are you sure we don’t need him?” Bruce frets.

“Do you _want_ to help as the Hulk?” Steve asks, hesitant.“We thought…”

“No,” he says, around an embarrassingly ginormous lump in his throat. “This is great.I…”He smiles like he hasn’t in years.“It’s perfect.”

 

 

Steve strips naked that night, fully naked, for the first time.He’s tense, but he slides under the covers with Bucky.For eight glorious minutes, Bucky gets to lay twined with him, skin to skin, thighs slotted together.Steve’s got too much adrenaline going to kiss him.He just breathes, face pressed into Bucky’s neck, until he gets antsy and worms out of his arms. 

He puts his sweatpants and t-shirt back on.His hands are shaking while he does it.He sits on the edge of the bed after that, back to Bucky, spine rounded.

“It’s so _stupid_ ,” he spits at last.

“No it’s not.” 

“Yes it is.It’s you.I know you’d never hurt me.”

He doesn’t bother to say that he _has_ hurt Steve.They’ve had that argument already, and it isn’t what he needs right now.Bucky’s been reading about recovery from trauma and sexual assault on Dr. Banner’s tablet.He’s borrowed it so much over the last few weeks that Dr. Banner told him to keep it and had Mr. Stark order him a new one.

“You can’t force it.”No more than Bucky can force himself to remember events, social conventions, how to make choices, life without fear… “It won’t help to do something before you’re ready.”

“I know,” Steve says through his teeth.“I just _hate_ that they still…”

He doesn’t have to finish the sentence.Bucky knows exactly what he means, in excruciating detail.Even in a safe place far away from them, Hydra still has control of how they feel and act.Not entirely, but enough that it’s horrifically frustrating at times.This is one of those times.

Steve sighs and burrows back into bed.It takes a long time for his body to uncoil and his breathing to slow.Bucky doesn’t let himself sleep until Steve’s out.It’s the least he can do after what Steve endured for him.He drops a kiss on his brow and drifts.

 

 

When he wakes, something’s…off.

He doesn’t know what it is, but he feels it. _Knows_ it.

Bucky slides from the bed without disturbing Steve.He sleeps on, peaceful.No reason to wake him…yet.

Instinct makes Bucky change the sensory setting on his arm to what Mr. Stark dubbed “Battle Mode”.Hopefully it’s nothing, just paranoia, but no one here will fault him for it.He palms a gun, spins a knife in metal fingers, and steps into the hallway.

Clint is there.A few feet away, he’s standing stock-still in his pajamas, brow creased.Watching.Listening.His eyes meet Bucky’s, and he knows he’s not crazy.Clint feels it, too.

Clint signs: _perimeter check._

Bucky jerks a nod.He’s about to stalk off to secure the house when a sound of pain reaches them.He freezes, a pit opening in his stomach like a sinkhole.It’s coming from the living room.

They both know the biggest culprits for falling asleep in there are Stark and Thor.Stark when he’s nodding off on his workbench in the middle of the night and has the sense not to stay there, and Thor if he’s been in Asgard and doesn’t want to wake anyone when he returns. 

He breaks into a run right behind Clint, adrenaline spiking. 

It’s Thor, curled up on the ground with his head in his hands.There’s no question that he’s in pain; his usually pleasant face is contorted in agony.Clint drops down, tries to inspect him, but there’s nothing visible.

“Thor, _what—”_ Clint starts, and immediately stops when the hair on his arms stands on end.They both stare for a moment.Bucky feels the prickle as the hair on his right arm follows suit.Static is thick in the air.

“Thor?” Clint tries again, but he’s easing back, uncertain.

 

 

The pain is unlike anything he’s ever felt.It’s as if Fenrir himself is in his mind trying to rip it to shreds.As he struggles, he can feel electricity ripple under his skin, building, surging.It’s not supposed to work like this, he can’t summon the lightning without Mjolnir and the hammer is hanging on the coat rack by the front door…

But it’s happening, and Thor isn’t sure he can stop it.He has to warn the others away.He could kill them if he loses control.Quite suddenly, he knows exactly how Bruce feels every day of his life.

He forces his eyes to open.Clint is there.Oh, _no_.His _children_ are here, his wife.He can’t do this to him.

 

 

Thor’s eyes are tinted red when they fix on Clint.The breath goes out of him.Sometimes, when he’s alone in front of a mirror, he remembers snippets of the time he was under Loki’s control.His minds plays tricks on him.He thinks he sees those strange, vacant flashbulb eyes staring back at him.

This isn’t the same.It’s not Loki or the scepter.It’s whatever was lurking in his projections, turning things red.

“It’s…here,” Thor chokes out, before his face crumples.“ _She’s here_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:
> 
> Я не хочу причинять ему боль = I don't want to hurt him
> 
> Сладких снов = Sweet dreams.


End file.
